64 
THE BOOK OF 
OPHIOGLOSSUM VULGATUM (THE ADDER’S-TONGUE). 
THIS is one of the most inconspicuous of all Ferns, and exists 
probably in many places where it is unsuspected, as it grows 
in quantities in some pasture lands among the grass, and looks 
very like a single leaf of the common Plantain weed, with a 
short seed-spike of the same weed projecting from its centre, 
like a serpent’s tongue, whence both its botanical and common 
names. It has a creeping root-stock, and if lifted en masse 
and transferred to a shady position in a garden will come up 
year after year. Two varieties are recorded, of which O. v. 
lusitanicum, a dwarf form, may be mentioned as possibly 
specifically distinct. No decorative value at all. 
OSMUNDA REGAL1S (THE ROYAL FERN). 
OF this there is only the one native species, commonly called 
also the flowering Fern, owing to a superficial resemblance 
to a Spiraea-like scape at the tips of the fertile fronds, in which 
OSMUNDA REGAI.IS CRISTATA. 
