192 
OPHIOGLOSSUM VULGATUM. 
Herball, published in 1668 , says, “The Adder’s Tongue, 
or Ophyoglosson, groweth in moyst and medowes in the 
end of April; ” adding, after giving a very characteristic 
woodcut, “ This is a wounde herbe, and healoth woundes 
which are almost uncurable, or at the least wonderfully 
hard to be healed. The nature of it is also to dryve 
away great swellinges, and to prevent extreme inflam¬ 
mations. Some use to bruise it with Swyne’s grese, and 
to kepe it and laye it upon swellinges; but I councell 
rather to seth it when it is grene with sallet oyle, and to 
kepe it, and then will it he good both for swellings and 
woundes also.” This is still used as an application to 
fresh wounds, and country-people know it as “ Adder’s- 
spear ointment.” 
There is a very permanent variety of this Fern, which 
by some botanists has been raised to the dignity of a 
species, under the name of Ophioglossum Lusitanicum , 
the Spanish or Lesser Adder’s Tongue. Its only re¬ 
markable differences from O. vulgatum are its shorter 
growth, its producing more than one leaf, and the leaves 
being stalked and spear-head-shaped. 
The drawing on the opposite page will best make its 
differences understood. 
“ For its discovery in the Channel Islands we are in¬ 
debted to Mr. George Wolsey, who found it among 
short herbage on the summit of rocks not far from 
Petit Bot Bay, on the south coast of the Island of 
Guernsey, growing with Trichonema Column <b and 
Seilia autumnalis." (Sowerby’s Ferns, edited by Charles 
Johnson.) 
