800 ORD. Lil. Filicés. aspirnium SGOLOPSNDRIUM. 
ROOT perennial, furnished with numerous fibres; which are 
brown and subdividing. Stipites or stalks simple, beset with 
mossy hair, extending along the midrib. Leaves long, tongue- 
_ shaped, pointed, entire, smooth, often a foot in length, of a 
shining yellowish green colour, and waved at the margin. Fruc-_ 
tifications placed in oblique lines on each side of the midrib of 
the leaf. Involucrum a membranous linear-shaped vesicle, opening 
longitudinally. Capsules numerous, on footstalks, globular, fur- 
nished with an elastic ring like those of Polypodium. The seeds, 
which are exceedingly minute, and very numerous, are thrown to 
a considerable distance by the vessel containing them, being 
violently forced open by the elastic power of the ring. 
It grows on moist shady rocks, old walls, and at the mouths of 
wells and caverns, eget its fructifications in oa gust and 
September. 
Besides the names above-mentioned, this plant has also been 
called hemionitis and phyllitis: it is supposed to possess medicinal 
qualities in common with several other species of the same genus, 
as golden and common maiden hair, wall-rue, and common spleen- 
wort, which were termed the five capillary herbs, and formerly 
held in great estimation. To the taste they are slightly astringent, 
mucilaginous, and sweetish ; and they change a solution of iron to 
a black colour; their smell is fart hsiderable: except the scolo- 
pendrium, which, when recent, eg rou Ret. manifests a dis- 
agreeable odour. . 
They have been formerly used to strengthen the viscera, restrain 
hemorrhages and alvine fluxes, expel gravel, and to open obstruc- 
tions of the liver and spleen; as well as for the general purposes 
of demulcents and pectorals, as noticed when speaking of com- 
mon maidenhair, which with the present plant are the only two 
of the five capillary-herbs retained in the Materia Medica of the 
Edinburgh Pharmacopeeia. 
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