BRAKE (AS. bracce, a fern). A popular name for the European and North American ferns of the genus Pteris. This genus is a member of the family Polypodiaem and is distinguished by having the spore-cases situated along the edges of the leaves and covered by the rellexed margin on the frond. The common brake or bracken (Pteris aquilina) is very abundant in most parts of the continents of Europe and .America, grow ing in heaths, parks, etc.. often covering •onsid erable tracts. It is a widely distributed plant, and is found also in many parts of Asia, and in some parts of Africa. It has a long, creeping, black rhizome, or rootstock. from which grow up naked stalks of eight to eighteen inches or more in height each stalk divides at the top into three branches; the branches are hipinnate, the inferior pimples pinnatifid. The rootstock, when cut across, exhibits an appearance which has been supposed to resemble a spread eagle, whence the specific name aquilina (Lat. oquila, an eagle). The rootstock is bitter, and has been used as a substitute for hops: it has also been ground, mixed with barley, and made into a wretched bread in times of distress. The plant is astrin gent and anthelmintic, and as such it had at one time a high reputation. although it is now little used, at least by medical practitioners. It is employed in dressing kid and chamois leather.
Brake is also employed for thatching„ for litter ing cattle, etc., and is oconsionally chopped up with or hay for feeding cattle. It is a favorite cover of deer and other game. The ;limn/lance of this plant is sometimes regarded as :t sign of poor land. although, probably. its absence from time richer soils is very much a result of cultivation. To extirpate it, nothing l; ore is necessary than a few successive plowings of the young shoots as they appear. The annual growth of brake is killed by first frosts of au tumn. but remains rigid and brown, still afford ing shelter for game, and is almost ascharaeteris tic a feature in the landscape of winter as in that of saintlier, perhaps adding to its general desolateness. l'ttris eaudata, a largo species of brake, very similar to that of Europe, is one of the worst pests which the farmer has to contend with in the south of Brazil. Pteris escalenta, a native of New Zealand, Van Diemen's Land, etc., has a rhizome more nutritious than that of the common brake. 'I wo species. Pteris ('refica and scrrillata, are common household plants. Fossil Forms.—No very ancient species of Pteris are known. Some species have been described from the Miocene beds of Western America and from the Tertiaries of Europe.