FiLICALES.] 



OPIIIOGLOSSACE^. 



OanER XXII I. OPHIOaLOSSACEiE.— Adders' Tongues. 



Ophioglosseae, B. Br 



Crypt. 



(1834) ; 



I. c. 163. (1810) ; Apardh Aph. 113. (1822) ; Mart. ic. PI. 

 Link. FilicHin Species, p. 15 ; Endl. Gen. xxxii. 



Diagnosis. — Filical Acrogeits^ with ringless, distinct, 2-valved spore-cmes, formed on the 

 margin of a contracted leaf. 

 Stem erect, or pendulous, with a cavity in the middle, instead of pith, and two or three 

 woody bundles placed round it in a ring. Below, the stalks of the leaves and the spike 

 become blended together. Leaves with netted veins sometimes forked. Spore-cases 

 collected into a spike foinned out of the sides of a contracted leaf, 2-valved, without any 

 trace of an elastic rmg. Spores resembling fine powder. 



These little plants exhibit a manifest transition to Club- 

 mosses, with which they closely agree in the valvate nature 

 of their spore-cases ; but in the latter they are axillary, 

 wliile m tlie former they are planted on the margin of a 

 contracted leaf. The cm-ious little genus Phylloglossum 

 seems to be an imitation among Clubmosses of the habit of 

 Adders' tongues. Link finds, in the hollow stem, whose 

 ca\'ity is surrounded by woody bundles, a structm*e inter- 

 mediate between that of Clubmosses and Horsetails, 



Adders' tongues are most abmidant m the islands of 

 tropical Asia, occurrmg however in the West Indies, and by 

 no means uncommon in temperate latitudes of both worlds. 

 In the tropical parts of Africa, and in Barbary, they seem 

 vmknoA\'n ; at the Cape of Good Hope and in Tasmannia they 

 are uncommon. 



The herbage of the order is mucilaginous, whence the 

 species have been employed in broths. Ophioglossvun vul- 

 gatum and Limaria botryoides have been used in medicine 

 as \Tihieraries, but they seem to possess that quahty as little 

 as the magical virtues once ascribed to them. Helmintho- 

 stachys dulcis is regarded in the Moluccas as a sUght aperi- 

 ent, is used as a pot-herb, and its yovmg shoots as asparagus. 

 The Haytians fancy Botrycliium cicutarimn to be an alexipharmic. 



Fig. LIV. 



Ophloglossum, Linn. 

 Ophioderma, Blum. 



GENERA. 



Helminthostachys, Klf. 

 Botryopteris, Presl. 

 Ophiala, Desv. 



Numbers. Gen. 4. Sp. 25 



Botrychium, Sivartz 

 Botrypus, Rich. 



LycopodiaceoB. 

 Position. — Polypodese (Osmundidfe). Ophioglossace.e. — Danseacese. 



MqimetacecB. 



Fig. LIV.— Ophioglossum lusitanicum. 



