316 CRYPTOGAMIA— FILICES. Ophioglossum. 



Perennial. June. 



Root of severalj simple, cylindrical, clustered or whorled, fibres. 

 Herb very smooth, a little succulent, of a pale opaque green, 

 erect, not a span high. Common stalk simple, cylindrical, pale, 

 with a few large, brownish, sheathing scales at the bottom ; a 

 stalked, pinnate, upright leaf about the middle, consisting of 

 five or six pair of fan-shaped, or crescent-like, stalked leaflets, 

 with an odd one, all notched or cut ; and a terminal, twice 

 compound spike of small, round, brownish capsules, nearly ses- 

 sile on one flat side of a linear common stalk, or receptacle. 



/3 has a branched stalk, bearing several leaves and compound 

 spikes, alternately disposed, y is a very slight variety, with 

 more jagged leajlets than ordinary. ^ has pinnatifid leaflets, 

 and a more spreading habit. All these varieties, and perhaps 

 others, are found occasionally, intermixed here and there, with 

 the plant in its proper or common form ; but never, as far as I 

 could learn, so numerously distinct^ as to have the appearance 

 of a different species. 



An ointment made of this herb, rubbed on the loins about the 

 region of the kidneys, is recorded by Ray, on the authority of 

 Needham, as an infallible remedy for the dysentery ; but Haller 

 remarks, that if we believe this, or any other of its restringent 

 properties, on the report of authors, we are not to give credit 

 to its magical virtues. These have been attributed to this, and 

 various other plants, in which some resemblance to the moon 

 was imagined. Even Conrad Gesner condescended to give an 

 account of such plants, and Thomas Bartholin republished his 

 treatise, with a few wooden cuts, at Copenhagen, in 1669. 



476. OPHIOGLOSSUM. Adders-tongue. 



Linn. Gen. 5.59. Juss.XA. Fl. 5r.ll06. Tourn. t. 325. Lam. t. 864. 

 Hedw. Theor. 4. t. 4./. 20—23. Sw. Sijn. Fil. 8. 



Nat. Ord. see 7i. 474. 



Caps, imbedded, in 2 op|3osite rows, in the substance of a 

 simple, linear, sliglitly comin'essed, sjnke, naked, round- 

 ish, of 2 equal, vertical, depressed valves, and 1 cell, 

 bursting horizontally. Cover none. Seeds numerous, 

 very minute, flattened, with a pellucid border. 



llooi like the last. Frond solitary, smooth, consisting of 

 a simple, undivided, rarely palmate, entire leaj] and 

 a stalked spike^ occasionally multiplied, of numerous 

 capsides. 



1. O. vulgatmn. Common Ovate Adder's-tongue. 

 Leaf ovate, veinless, about as tall as the spike. 



