THE COMMON SCALE FERN, 
or Scaly Spleenwoet. 
Asplenium Ceterach * — Linnaeus. 
Geterach, the botanical name of this genus (of which 
there is only one British species), is said to be a cor¬ 
ruption of GhetheraJc , 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 ( , Scolopendrium Ceterach, 
Gymnogramma Ceterach, Blechnum squamosum, &c, 
K 3 
