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SCOLOPENDRIUM VULGARE. 
[Meaning Common Centipede. The first word 
comes from Scolopendra, a Centipede, the long 
brown seed patches, sloping away from the stalk, 
representing, to the eye of fancy, the legs of that 
insect. Lingua cervina, Hart’s-tongue, is the Latin 
equivalent for our English name. ] 
ENGLISH NAME, — HARt’s-TONGTJE. 
Syn. — Asplenium Scolopendrium , Scolopendrium 
Phillitis, 8fc. 
Root tufted. Filaments long, strong, and black. 
Leaves numerous, from a foot to two feet high, 
strap -shaped, or ribbon-shaped ; pointed above, 
heart-shaped below. Rachis, or stalk, scaly. Each 
elongated sorus, or seed patch, consists in reality 
of two sori placed face to face. When ripe they 
open in the middle throughout their whole length 
against each other, for the emission of the seed. 
The lower sorus is nourished by the upper fork of 
the vein below, and the upper sorus by the lower 
fork of the vein above. The fronds resist the 
winter frosts, and endure till the new ones unroll 
themselves in the spring. The example given in 
the plate is necessarily small, in order to accom- 
modate it to the size of the book. 
Varieties. — The most usual is that which is cleft 
at the end into two, three, four, or more lobes, 
expressed by the words bifidum , or bifid, trijid, 
quadrijid, & c., and many times cleft, multijid. 
This last presents the appearance of a bunch of 
frilling. Refer to the second plate. Keep your 
eyes about you, and you will find it near Sid- 
mouth. Fern hunters must be wide awake. The 
variety crispum has the margin wavy like a frill 
got up on the Italian iron; but it loses this ap- 
pearance by pressing. The variety polyschides is 
not common, so that increased vigilance is requisite 
if you are determined to find it — which I hope you 
are. Never give in. Go on, look again. If it is 
worth while to undertake the search, never give it 
