140 FILICES 
ruins and ancient castles and churches, as well as on rocky places, especially 
in limestone districts, in England and Ireland ; but the plant is found chiefly 
in the western half of England and Scotland ; also in Wales, Ireland, and 
the Channel Isles. A variety found in the English Lake-district, in Devon, 
Perthshire, and Waterford, has the edges of the lobes crenately toothed ; it is 
therefore styled crenatum. The old Arabian writers said much in praise of its 
worth in complaints of the liver and spleen, and our herbalists eulogize its 
efficacy as an outward application to wounds. It appears to be the true Spleen- 
wort of the ancients, and the plant to which they attributed so great an effect 
in disorders of the spleen. The Cretan swine, when feeding upon it, were said 
to lose that organ altogether, and it was believed that, when taken to excess, 
the same injury was experienced by the human constitution. Is has of late 
years been recommended as a good medicine in cases of jaundice. The fern 
is evergreen, and it grows to a much larger size in warmer regions than in 
our country. It seems, however, to be the same plant, owing its luxuriance 
to the climate. The author has seen a specimen of a Scaly Spleenwort 
(C. aureum) brought from Madeira, in which some fronds of the tuft were 
fourteen inches long, though our native fronds are usually about three or 
four inches in length. During periods of hot dry weather the fronds of this 
fern become so shrivelled as to appear dead, but on the return of rain they 
at once become plump and fresh again. Ceterach, like Athyrium, is now 
generally regarded as a sub-genus or division of Aspleniwm. 
11. HART’s-TONGUE (Scolopéndrium). 
Common Hart’s-tongue (8S. vulgdre).—Fronds oblong, strap-shaped, 
simple ; base heart-shaped. To those accustomed to wander about our green 
lanes and fields, no fern will less require a minute description than this. 
Its general features are known not alone to the botanist, but to every observer 
of plants, and it varies, under any circumstances, too little from its ordinary 
form to make it difficult of recognition. Its clumps of long, slender, bright 
green leaves, with a surface so glossy that the rain-drop runs off them, gather 
on sunny hedge-banks in almost every rural district of our land, and are still 
more often to be found on the moist and shady sides of woods, among the 
long grasses, or coarse herbage, or the tall stems of wild flowers. The clumps 
are circular, the fronds spreading out from the centre, and gracefully curving 
downwards. In May, when the hedges are full of blue-bells, and anemones, 
and rosy cranesbills, the young fronds may be seen daily uncoiling somewhat 
further, till all traces of their scroll-like form are lost, save a little curl at 
the tip of the frond, which in a few days is levelled too, and the pale green 
colour of the young frond gradually assumes its richer verdure. In June 
and July the Hart’s-tongue Fern is very bright and beautiful, of a delicate 
and tender green, quivering before the rough winds, but of too firm a texture 
to be stirred by a light summer’s breeze. The frond is long and narrow, 
tapering and acute at its upper end, and again gradually narrowing at the 
base, when it becomes very distinctly heart-shaped. Its margin is entire and 
waved, the leafy portion being placed on a short and shaggy stalk, which is 
of a purplish-brown colour at the base. While the frond is young, it has a 
downy or cottony substance on its under side, and often also on each side of 
