Notes

fougere

Rabelais ingorait évidemment le mode de génération à double cycle, l’un asexué, permanent (sores, sporanges, spores) ; l’aultre sexué et transitoire (prothalle, anthéridie + anthérozoïde, archégone + oosphère), qui charactérise les fougères. Sans envisager le mode de reproduction, les anciens botanistes grec décrivaient comme fougère mâle la plus haite, et cujus ex und radice complures exeunt filices (Pline, XXVII, 55), autrement dit notre Pteris aquilina L., et comme fougère femelle ou Thelypteris les fougères de taille plus petite, à frondes multiples entées sur divers points du rhizome (Anthyrion, Polystichon, Blechnon). Une interprétation fautive et à contresens faite par Dodoëns des mots fougère mâle et femelle a entrainé dans la même confusion tous les auteurs moderns. (Paul Delaunay)

fougere

Filicis duo genera. nec florem habent nec semen. pterim vocant Graeci, alii blachnon, cuius ex una radice conplures exeunt filices bina etiam cubita excedentes longitudine, non graves odore. hanc marem existimant. alterum genus thelypterim Graeci vocant, alii nymphaeam pterim, est autem singularis atque non fruticosa, brevior molliorque et densior, foliis ad radicem canaliculata. utriusque radice sues pinguescunt, folia utriusque lateribus pinnata, unde nomen Graeci inposuere. radices utriusque longae in oblicum, nigrae, praecipue cum inaruere. siccari autem eas sole oportet. nascuntur ubique, sed maxime frigido solo. effodi debent vergiliis occidentibus. usus radicis in trimatu tantum, neque ante nec postea. pellunt interaneorum animalia, ex his taenias cum melle, cetera ex vino dulci triduo potae, utraque stomacho inutilissima. alvum solvit primo bilem trahens, mox aquam, melius taenias cum scamonii pari pondere. radix eius pondere duum obolorum ex aqua post unius diei abstinentiam bibitur, melle praegustato, contra rheumatismos. neutra danda mulieribus, quoniam gravidis abortum, ceteris sterilitatem facit. farina earum ulceribus taetris inspergitur, iumentorum quoque in cervicibus. folia cimicem necant, serpentem non recipiunt, ideo substerni utile est in locis suspectis, Usta etiam fugant nidore. fecere medici huius quoque herbae discrimen, optima Macedonica est, secunda Cassiopica.

Ferns are of two kinds, neither having blossom or seed. Some Greeks call pteris, others blachnon, the kind from the sole root of which shoot out several other ferns exceeding even two cubits in length, with a not unpleasant smell. This is considered male. The other kind the Greeks call thelypteris, some nymphaea pteris. It has only one stem, and is not bushy, but shorter, softer and more compact than the other, and channelled with leaves at the root. The root of both kinds fattens pigs. In both kinds the leaves are pinnate on either side, whence the Greeks have named them “pteris” [The Greek πτερόν means “feather”]. The roots of both are long, slanting, and blackish, especially when they have lost moisture; they should, however, be dried in the sun. Ferns grow everywhere, but especially in a cold soil. They ought to be dug up at the setting of the Pleiades. The root must be used only at the end of three years, neither earlier nor later. Ferns expel intestinal worms, tapeworms when taken with honey, but for other worms they must be taken in sweet wine on three consecutive days; both kinds are very injurious to the stomach. Fern opens the bowels, bringing away first bile, then fluid, tapeworms better with an equal weight of scammony. To treat catarrhal fluxes two oboli by weight of the root are taken in water after fasting for one day, with a taste of honey beforehand. Neither fern should be given to women, since either causes a miscarriage when they are pregnant, and barrenness when they are not. Reduced to powder they are sprinkled over foul ulcers as well as on the necks of draught animals. The leaves kill lice and will not harbour snakes, so that it is well to spread them in suspected places; by the smell too when burnt they drive away these creatures. Among ferns also physicians have their preference; the Macedonian is the best, the next best comes from Cassiope [A town in Corcyra].

Notes

two sexes in oak

Taking, as was said, all trees according to their kinds, we find a number of differences. Common to them all is that by which men distinguish the ‘male’ and the ‘female,’ the latter being fruit-bearing, the former barren in some kinds. In those kinds in which both forms are fruit-bearing the ‘female’ has fairer and more abundant fruit; however some call these the ‘male’ trees—for there are those who actually thus invert the names. This difference is of the same character as that which distinguishes the cultivated from the wild tree, while other differences distinguish different forms of the same kind; and these we must discuss, at the same time indicating the peculiar forms, where these are not obvious and easy to recognise.
Take then the various kinds of oak; for in this tree men recognise more differences than in any other. Some simply speak of a cultivated and a wild kind, not recognising any distinction made by the sweetness of the fruit; (for sweetest is that of the kind called Valonia oak, and this they make the wild kind), but distinguishing the cultivated kind by its growing more commonly on tilled land and having smoother timber, while the Valonia oak has rough wood and grows in mountain districts. Thus some make four kinds, others five. They also in some cases vary as to the names assigned; thus the kind which bears sweet fruit is called by some hemeris, by others ‘true oak.’ So too with other kinds. However, to take the classification given by the people of Mount Ida, these are the kinds: hemeris (gall-oak), aigilops (Turkey-oak), ‘broad-leaved’ oak (scrub oak), Valonia oak, sea-bark oak, which some call ‘straight-barked’ oak. All these bear fruit; but the fruits of Valonia oak are the sweetest, as has been said; second to these those of hemeris (gall-oak), third those of the ‘broad-leaved’ oak (scrub oak), fourth sea-bark oak, and last aigilops (Turkey-oak), whose fruits are very bitter. However the fruit is not always sweet in the kinds specified as such; sometimes it is bitter, that of the Valonia oak for instance. There are also differences in the size shape and colour of the acorns. Those of Valonia oak and sea-bark oak are peculiar; in both of these kinds on what are called the ‘male’ trees the acorns become stony at one end or the other; in one kind this hardening takes place in the end which is attached to the cup, in the other in the flesh itself. Wherefore, when the cups are taken off, we find a cavity like the visceral cavities in animals.

chesnes

Le chêne a des fleurs màle et femelles distinctes, mais portés sur le méme pied (monœcie). Pline, qui distingue à tort un chêne mâle et femelle, ecrit « In querna, aia [glans] dulcior molliorque feminæ ; mari spissior », XVI, 8. (Paul Delaunay)

chesnes

sed et in alia dulcior molliorque feminae, mari spissior. maxime autem probantur latifoliae ex argumento dictae: distant inter se magnitudine et cutis tenuitate, item quod aliis subest tunica robigine scabra aliis protinus candidum corpus

But also in the case of the oak in general the acorn of the female tree is sweeter and softer, while that of the male tree is more compact.

Male and female

Squaring the circle to make the sexes one whole. From Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1617.