THE WOODSIAS. 53 



sori. It is also called Seaweed-fern (Surrey) from its resemblance 

 to small fronds of Laminaria; and Snake-leaves (Somerset). In 

 Co. Meath, where it is employed as a remedy for burns, it is 

 known as Burnt-weed ; and in Guernsey it has the remarkable 

 name of Christ's-hair. This name is explained by snapping the 

 stipes and pulling out the solitary black fibro-vascular bundle. 



The old Latin name for the plant was Lingua cervina, whence 

 Hart's-tongue is derived as an English equivalent. The Greeks 

 called it Scolopendrium from the resemblance of the back of the 

 frond, with its parallel lines of sori, to a centipede (Scolopendra). 

 The species name -vulgare refers in Latin to its commonness. 

 This is the only native species of its genus, which is represented 

 on the Continent by one other, Scolopendrium hemionitis. 



The Woodsias (Woodsia). 



These are ferns whose fortune or misfortune it was to escape 

 the notice of our early ancestors, and so until recent times they 

 had no English names. There were several reasons for this 

 oversight, chief among them the fact that these plants do not 

 grow at a lower elevation than about 2000 feet above the sea, 

 which alone would take them out of the purview of the ordinary 

 person. Then, again, the appearance of the fronds is such that 

 on a cursory glance they might be passed over as the foliage 

 of one of the Louseworts (Pedicitlaris), or if more closely 

 scrutinized be set down as seedling forms of some larger fern. 

 Even among the elect the botanists of a hundred years or so 

 ago they were regarded as members of the genus Polypodiunt. 

 The reason for this will be seen when we reach that genus, whose 

 chief distinguishing character is the absence of an indusium to 

 cover its undeveloped sori. These ferns were long held to be 

 so characterized, but in the year 1813 Robert Brown showed 

 that the indusium was present, though . in an unusual position, 

 and he created the genus Woodsia to receive ferns with this 



