We've put the vegetable lamb out to pasture. But there's still magic ferns to share from the pages of Elizabeth Blackwell's A Curious Herbal, ones that come from much closer to home.
You've heard of the philosopher's stone, but what about the philosopher's fern?
![The historic midwifery and sex guide "Aristotle's Compleat Masterpiece" on display at Thackray Museum of Medicine.
The page is open to a description of female sexual organs (referred to as "the secret parts of that curious piece of nature that we are to lay open"). It describes the clitoris as "like a yard [penis] in situation, substance, composition, and erection", arguing that this is the part that "gives delight in copulation ... without this, the fair sex neither desire mutual embraces, nor have pleasure in them, nor conceive by them."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ldvs43uvd7crgzoo7va62bqz/bafkreifzocmj3ax6tda6usj3qw2b3ota2br3nkrp3tcmcxrpyiqgdtlhia)
