O SMU N D A regalis.
Ofmund royal, or Flowering Fern.
C RTPTO G A M I A Filices,— -fpicahz.
G en. Char. Capfules naked, globofe, two-valved.
S pec. Char. Frond bipinnate, terminating in a com*
pound d u lle r o f fructification.
S y n . Ofmunda regalis. Linn. Sp. PI. 1521. HudJ.
FI. An. 4 49. IVith. Bot. Arr. v. 3. 47.
F ilix ramofa non dentata llorida. Rail Syn. 125.
O sM U N D A belongs to that tribe of ferns whofe fructification,
inftead of being borne on the back of the f'ond, is produced
by a metamorphofis, as it were, of the leaf itfelf; neither
are the capfules bound with a ring, as in ntoft of the dorfiferous
ferns. See an excellent note of Dr. Stokes’s Bot. Arr. v. 3.46.
and Dr. Smith’s paper de jilicum generibus dorjiferarum, in the
5th vol. of the Memoirs of the Turin Acad. p. 147.
The fpecies before us occurs here and there in watery fhady
meadows and fpongy bogs, making a confpicuous figure with
its clufters of fructification in July or Auguft. Its root is large
and woody, a decoCtion or extract of which is elteemed in
Switzerland very ufeful for curing the rickets. Fronds feveral,
3 or 4 feet high, not unlike in hue and figure to young aflx
trees, as Gerarde obferves; they are bipinnate, the leaflets
alternate or oppofite occafionally, finely ferrated, and often
flightly lobed at the bafe. The clufters are thrice compounded,
bearing roundifh tufts of innumerable bivalve capfules,
full of minute feeds. A magnified figure of the cap-
fule has, by accident, been omitted in our plate, but we fhall
take a future opportunity of exhibiting the generic character.
Ray, in the ift edition of his Synopfis, p. 26, has defcribed
and figured young plants of this fpecies as a new fern, by the
name of Hemionitispumila trifolia vel quinquefolia maritima.