158 FILICES—FERN TRIBE 
fructification, too, takes more the form of a cyme, the branches being of 
more equal length. 
19. ADDER’S-TONGUE (Ophiogléssum). 
1. Common Adder’s-tongue (0. vulgdiwm).—Barren frond egg-shaped, 
blunt ; fertile frond club-shaped. This is a common plant, abundant in 
many parts of England, and easily known from any other fern. One who 
was not a botanist would describe its full-grown frond as being a green leaf, 
sending up from its base a stalk bearing a spike. If we look for this plant in 
May, we may find the bud underground: this was formed in the previous 
autumn, and on being opened, it may be seen to enclose not only the leaf and 
spike for the next year, but also the rudiment of the leaf for the year after. 
The plant, when seen in the middle of the month of June, at which time it 
is fully developed, is erect, with a long smooth succulent stem, of a pale 
green colour, a leaf of a deeper green tint, not with forked veins like most 
ferns, but with veins forming a net-work ; while from the inner part of the 
leaf rises the stalk, which varies from about an inch to three inches in length. 
The spike on this stalk tapers towards the summit, and is formed of two 
lines of crowded capsules imbedded in its substance, and occupying its two 
opposite sides. The capsules, which are globose, are filled with a fine dust, 
like the pollen of flowers. When fully ripened they discharge their contents, 
which are spores, and if the soil is moist, the plant becomes so plentiful in 
the pastures in the course of a few summers as to injure them greatly. 
Though local in distribution, yet in parks and clayey pastures we might 
sometimes gather a basketful of plants in the course of a few hours. It is 
no marvel that our forefathers called it Adder’s-tongue, or Adder’s-spear, for, 
like the reptile after which it was named, it was believed to have great power 
for evil, and not only to destroy the grass among which it grew, but to 
injure the cattle which fed upon it. The plant was, however, prized as a 
remedial agent by the old herbalists. Gerarde said of it, that it would, when 
boiled in olive oil, afford “a most excellent greene oyle, or rather a balsam 
for greene wounds, comparable to oyle of St. John’s Wort, if it doth not far 
surpasse it ; whose beauty is such that very many artists thought the same 
to be mixed with verdigrease.” No doubt many of the vegetable remedies 
for wounds were rendered serviceable by the oil with which the juices were 
so frequently mingled. A preparation, called the “Green Oil of Charity,” is 
in some counties still deemed a panacea ; and Adder’s-spear ointment, made 
of our fern, mingled with plantain and other herbs, is in much use in villages, 
and its green leaves are yet laid on wounds to heal them, serving doubtless 
to cool the inflammation, and also to unite the edges of a wound inflicted by 
a sharp instrument. Culpepper praises the juice of the leaves mingled with 
the distilled water of horse-tail, as a “singular remedy ” for internal wounds. 
Large quantities of the plant are gathered in some villages of Kent, Sussex, 
and Surrey, and prepared according to the old prescriptions. The barren 
frond of the Adder’s-tongue is often forked, or even deeply lobed at the 
extremity, and sometimes two or three spikes of fructification may be seen 
on one plant; but, excepting in luxuriance of growth, the fern exhibits 
little variation. The French call the plant Langue de serpent ; the Germans 
