THE COMMON SCALE FERN, 
or Scaly Spleenwort. 
Asplenium Ceterach* — Linnaeus. 
Ceterach , the botanical name of this genns (of which 
there is only one British species), is said to be a cor- 
ruption of ChetheraJc, the name given to it by Arabian 
or Persian medical writers. Its old English designa- 
tion of Milt-wast is said also to be a corruption : the 
Milt being the Spleen, and wast said to be from waste, 
because of some story of its destroying the spleen, — 
but more probably, as Bailey puts it in his good old 
dictionary, “ Milt-wast, wort, Herbs ” (making wast 
the synonym of wort, a herb), Milt-wast is simply 
Spleenwort, and no corruption at all. It was also 
called Finger Feme, “ because,” says Turner in his 
Herbal (1551), “ it is no longer than a manne’s 
finger,” and Scale Feme, “ because it is all full of 
scales in the inner syde.” The Scaly Milt-wast or 
Spleenwort, growing generally about the size of “a 
manne’s finger,” sometimes not so large, but some- 
times even six or eight inches long, is a tufted ever- 
* Ceterach officinarum ( Willdenovo), Scolopendrium Ceterach, 
Gymnogramma Ceterach, Blechnum squamosum, &c. 
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