43 . 
THE SCALY SPLEENWORT. 
Asplenium ceterach. 
Plate 6, Figs. 12 and 13, Page 235. 
Amongst our native Ferns this beautiful plant is by many 
botanists relegated to an isolated position, where it figures — 
under the name of Cetenp-h officinarum — as the only native 
species of its genus. Yet with strange inconsistency many of 
those who give it a separate generic name continue to call it 
a Spleenwort. The principal reason for ranking it under a 
genus distinct from Asplenium appears to be founded on the 
circumstance that the entire back of the frond is densely 
clothed with scales. P>ut this mark of distinction is not more 
prominent than the differences which exist between many of 
the species of Asplenium. Looking at the plant, however, 
rather from a natural than from an artificial and imaginative 
stand-point, it must be evident that the reasons for including 
it under the Spleenworts are conclusive : not only its general 
appearance, but its habits, and the mode and place of its 
growth, unmistakably pointing to the necessity of ranking it 
as a Spleenwort. The specific name as here adopted of 
ceterach can only be regarded as a distinctive appellation. 
The word is merely an adaptation of Chetherah, a term 
applied to it by ancient medical writers when discoursing of 
it as a cure for splenetic disorders. Like all t he Spleenworts, 
it is a rock or wall-loving species, growing in the stony 
crevices of rocks, and between the joints of masonry in walls. 
