290 
ASPLENIACE.E. 
more abundant ; it is not only scattered generally over the island, 
but occurs in some localities in very great abundance, parti- 
cularly in the neighbourhood of Sligo, and in the demesne of 
Muckruss, near Killarney ; it here grows among the underwood, 
in the shrubberies, &c. in large luxuriant tufts, the fronds radi- 
ating from a common centre, and each being gracefully arched 
in a semicircle, like the long feathers of a cock’s tail. The 
Hart’s Tongue is very commonly found on walls and ruins; and 
it seems particularly to delight in old wells, in which last situa- 
tion its fronds sometimes grow to a very large size. 
I believe this handsome species is found in every country 
throughout Europe, but is very sparingly distributed towards the 
north. It has also been found in the United States, but is there 
considered one of the rarest of ferns. I know nothing of it in 
Africa, Asia, or South America. 
It is almost impossible to fail in giving an intelligible repre- 
sentation of so marked a species. All the British and continen- 
tal figures sufficiently exhibit its very distinctive form. 
This fern is the Phyllitis of Ray,^ and all the older authors. 
Linneus made it an Asplenium,\ giving it the specific name of 
Scolopendrium, in which he was followed by Hudson,! Berken- 
hout,§ Withering, II and Hofimann.^ Sir J. E. Smith, in the 
^ Turin Transactions,’^^ separated it from Asplenium as a new 
genus, to which he gave the name of Scolopendrium : in this 
genus he included Ceterach. The present plant was described 
by Symons,tt as Scolopendrium vulgare^ a name adopted by 
Smith, Hooker, Francis and Babington : on the continent, 
Swartz §§ adopted Smith’s genus, but gave it the specific name 
of officinarum : in this he was followed by Willdenow and We- 
ber and Mohr. It is the Scolopendrium Phyllitis of Roth,|||| 
and the Scolopendrium officinale of the ^ Flore Frangaise.’ 
From this statement, which I have endeavoured to compress in- 
to the smallest possible compass, I think it will appear that there 
is no generally adopted name for this species, and that the Bri- 
* Syn. 116. f Sp. Plant. 1537. X Flora Anglica, ii. 452. 
§ Berk. Syn. ii. 305. || Arr. Brit. PL iii. 766. ^ Hoff. Dents. Flor. ii. 13. 
Act. Taur. v. 410. ff Sym. Syn. 193. §§ Syn. Fil. 89. 
II Ij Roth, Flor. Germ. iii. 47. Flor. Franc, ii. 552. 
