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OPIIIOGLOSSUil VULGATUM. 
OPHIOGLO’SSUM VULGA'TUM. 
That this is a Fern very distinct from all others is de¬ 
monstrated by the fact that it has never received from 
botanists any other generic name than Ophiofiossum, 
and with but a solitary exception no other specific 
name than that under which we notice it. The ex¬ 
ception is O. ovatum, the name under which it is de¬ 
scribed by Mr. Salisbury. Its English name is equally 
unique, being known by no other than Adder’s Tongue. 
The botanical name is merely a translation of this, 
derived from the Greek words ophis, a serpent, and 
qlossa, a tongue. 
Boot small, carrot • shaped, with numerous stout, 
yellow, smooth, fibrous rootlets, spreading horizontally. 
Frond from three to nine, and even more inches high ; 
its stem pale green, round, hollow, and tapering down¬ 
wards; the barren lobe of the frond, usually called the 
leaf, stalkless, solitary, egg-shaped, lurid green, nearly 
upright, sheathing the stem; the fertile lobe, which 
gives the plant its name, from its somewhat tongue-like 
shape, is really a spike of fructification, as in the 
Botryehium and Omunda ; it rises from withinside the 
base of the barren lobe, stalked, narrow, slightly taper¬ 
ing upwards, pointed, bearing the fructification in a 
line along each of its two edges; the fructification is 
embedded in roundish, yellow masses, which, gaping 
when the spores have escaped, present a series of clefts 
