28 



THE BOOK OF CHOICE FERNS. 



The first writer who mentions 0. vulgatum as an English plant is 

 Win. Turner, who, in the third part of his " Herball," published in the 

 year 1568, says, " The Adder's-tongue or Ophyoglosson, groweth in moyst 

 medowes in the end of April." It was formerly credited with wonderful 

 medical properties, and in some parts of the country it is still used as an 

 application to fresh wounds, country -people knowing it as " Adder's-spear 

 ointment." 



This species has an erect or sometimes creeping, but not tuberous, 

 rootstock, with fleshy roots extending horizontally, often to a distance of 

 several inches. Occasionally one of them forms an adventitious bud, and 

 produces a new plant at some little distance from the old one. Only one 

 frond is commonly produced each year, and the fronds of successive years 

 face in opposite directions. Their size generally varies, according to the 

 elevation at which it grows, to such an extent that those specimens found 

 in grassy, damp meadows at West Felton, Shropshire ; Blymill, Staffordshire ; 

 or Wrexham, in Wales, are four times as large as those gathered in Dalmeny 

 Wood, near Edinburgh, or near Richmond, in Yorkshire. The frond for the 

 year grows from just below the summit of the rootstock. At the base of the 

 stalk there is a short sheath, which encloses a pointed bud containing the 

 undeveloped frond for the next year's growth ; and, according to Hofmeister, 

 even the rudiments of the frond for another year may be detected within the 

 same bud. The length of the frond generally varies from 3in. to 12in. ; its 

 stem is pale green, round, and hollow ; the barren division, 2in. to 4in. long and 

 ljin. to 2in. broad, is egg-shaped, sessile (stalkless), sheathing the stem, 

 nearly upright, and disposed about half-way on the stem, which terminates 

 in the fertile spike lin. or more in length. Thus the fructification, which 

 considerably overtops the barren division when the plant is fully developed, 

 appears to rise from within the base of the barren portion, and forms a some- 

 what tongue-like organ, with the spore masses disposed in a line along each 

 of its two edges. The spores are embedded in roundish, yellow masses, 

 which, gaping when the spores have escaped, present a series of clefts along 

 each edge of the fertile spike. — Hooker, British Ferns, t. 46. Nicholson, 

 Dictionary of Gardening, ii., p. 500. Eaton, Ferns of North America, 

 ii., t. 81. Loive, Ferns British and Exotic, vii., t. 65a. Correvon, Les 

 Fougeres rustiques, p. 161. 



