64 
Plate I, fig. 16. 
“ Great Dioscorides relates, 
If pluckt in open weather, 
This herb a swollen spleen abates, 
l^ay, if for forty days, saith he, 
You drink it steep’d in vinaigre, 
Removes it altogether. 
Ye spiteful souls, its virtues try, 
One thing well nigh I had forgot, 
That when the vinegar you buy, 
In using, make it boiling hot.” 
Quincy, Pharmacopcea Officinalis, 10th Edition, 
MDCCXXXYI. 
Scaly Spleenwort. Ceteracli Officinavum. Though this is 
thickly scattered on almost every old wall in the northern 
and midland parts of the County of Somerset, it by no 
means luxuriates in the district of the Axe. It is rather 
partial to lime stone. The frond is deeply divided, but not 
sufficiently to make distinct leaflets. The divisions or lobes 
are bluntly rounded, and not in the least notched. Many 
fronds three to flve inches long arise from the roots. When 
the flrst buds begin to appear, they assume a glossy white 
colour. The lower surface is covered with thick shining 
scales. No other Pern growing in the neighbourhood in 
any way resembles it. The scales at first are white, after- 
wards brown, and when seen under a microscope, appear to 
be beautifully net- worked. The lobes are alternate, rarely 
opposite. They turn upward when old, and expose their 
fructification. The fruit only appears when the fronds are 
aged, and then bursts through the scales in oblong, trans- 
verse masses. It seems questionable whether there be any 
real cover to the clusters of spores. Hooker says that there 
is — that Ceterach is now found to possess a narrow involucre 
(cover) like that of Spleenwort (Asplenium). All seem to 
allow that there is a kind of ridge as thin as the finest 
muslin or gauze, which is to be found close to the veins on 
which the clusters lie. Nature does not require the same 
perfect covering for the bags of spores, as the chafiy scales 
perform the same part. The fronds grow in tufts, and are 
thick and fleshy. Most Perns, if not perfectly transparent, 
are not what we should style opaque, as is the case with 
