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162 FAMILY HERBAL. 



^Hart's Tongue. Phyllitls. Lingua cervinU. 



A WILD plant of the fern kind, that is con- 

 sisting: onlj of leaves, without a stalk, the flowers 

 and speds being borne on the backs of them. But 

 it has DO resemblance to the ordinary ferns in its 

 aspect. Eacb leaf of hart's tongue, is a separate 

 plant, but there rise many from the same root. 

 The foot-stalk is live inches long, the leaf an inch 

 and a quarter broad, largest at the bottom, and 

 smaller to the top, usually simple, but sometimes 

 divided into two or more parts at the end. It is of 

 a beautiful green at the upper side, somewhat paler 

 underneath, and the foot-stalk runs all along its 

 middle in tlie form of a very large rib. The seed ves- 

 «els are disposed in long brown streaks on each side 

 ' of this rib, on the under part of the leaf, and they are 



more ccaspicuous than in most of the fern kind. 

 The plant grows in old wells, and in dark ditches, 

 and is green all the year. 



It is not much used, but deserves to be more 



known. It is an excellent astringent'; the juice 



of the plant taken in small quantities, and for a 

 continuance of time, opens obstructions of the liver 

 and spleen, and will cure many of the most obstinate 

 chronic distempers. 



Hartwort. Scseli. 



A TALL, robust, and handsome plant, native 

 of the Alps, but kept in our gardens. It grows 

 five or six feet in height : the stalk is round, thick, 

 itriated, and hollow, very firm and upright, and 

 hut little branched. The leaves are very large, 

 and they are divided into a great number of parts, 

 by fives and by threes, they are of a yellowish 

 green. The flower* are^small and white,' hut they 



