
SCOLOPENDRIUM VULGARE 225 
and a heavy-headed grandiceps, with large bunch crests; the 
fronds indeed being a collection of such, and connecting bare 
stalks. The latter only grows about two feet high, the former four 
or five. 
PoLYDACTYLA (Fig. 263), in which the terminals of the sub- 
divisions are branched into numerous slender points. 
REVOLVENS.—Found at Windermere and near Chepstow by the 
writer; a robust, handsome form, with fronds convexly curved 
and tips and side divisions terminating spirally. 
SCOLOPENDRIUM VULGARE (THE Common 
HARTSTONGUE) 
(Plate XXXV) 
With the exception of the little Adder’s-tongue Fern (Ophio- 
glossum vulgatum), the Hartstongue Fern is the only British 
species in which normally the fronds are quite undivided. In 
the Hartstongue they consist of a stalk of about one-third of the 
whole length, surmounted by a long, leafy portion, commencing 
with two rounded lobes of a semi-heart shape, whence the frond 
continues with smooth parallel edges for some distance, finally 
narrowing and terminating in a bluntish point. In robust speci- 
mens the fronds may be between 
two and three feet in length by 
three or four inches in width. 
The Fern is perfectly evergreen, 
and its fronds are of a dark, 
shining green and fleshy texture. 
Its fructification is peculiar, as is 
shown by Fig. 264, consisting of 
two rows, arranged herring-bone 
fashion on each side the midrib, of 
long, sausage-shaped masses of 
capsules, each mass on close ex- 
amination being found to consist 
of two lines, distinct when im- 
mature, but confluent when ripe 
Each line is exactly of the Spleen. 
wort type, and has the same translucent skin-like cover or indusium, 
but in Scolopendrium these covers are situated on the outer edge of 
each pair, and turn inwards towards each other, so that in the early 
stages of growth their opposed free edges meet, but are subsequently 
forced asunder as spore growth proceeds. This peculiarity dis- 
tinguishes the genus Scolopendrium from the Asplenia, to which, 
however, it is very closely allied, so closely, indeed, that hybridiza- 
tion has been effected (S. vulgare x Asp. Ceterach) by Mr. E. J. 
Q 

Fig. 264. Scolopendrium vulgare 
(part of frond). 






