THE ADDERS-TONGUE. 
Oph ioglossum vulga turn. 
Plate 5, Fig. 5, Page 225. 
Thehe is a very close relationship between the Adders- 
tongue and the Moonwort. Our three native species, the 
Moonwort, the common Adders-tongue, and the Little 
Adders-tongue, are included as species under two genera 
belonging to the same order — an order which botanists call 
Ophioglossacese, and which includes those Ferns whose leaves 
are folded up in a straight manner, and do not unroll in un- 
folding. Their spore cases are unprovided with an elastic 
ring, and are two-valved. The common Adders-tongue, like 
the Moonwort, grows amongst grassy roots in moist meadows, 
heaths, or moors, springing up about the month of May, its 
fronds disappearing by the end of the summer. But it pre- 
fers a damper situation, and a richer and more loamy soil 
than Bolrychium lunar ia ; and for this reason it is not found 
growing in situations so far above the sea level as the latter, 
its range not going beyond an elevation of about six hundred 
feet. 
Description.— The root of the Adders-tongue is llesliy, 
succulent, and brittle ; and like the Moonwort it produces a 
sort of double frond, which at the top of its stem, divides 
into two parts, the one leafy and barren, and the other con- 
tracted and fruitful, being nothing more indeed than a fruit- 
bearing spike. The leafy portion divides at an acute angle 
