
THE COMMON ADDER'S TONGUE. 341 
the juice, and vntill the herbes be dry and parched, and then 
strained, will yeeld a most excellent greene oyle, or rather a balsame 
for greene wounds, comparable to oile of St. J ohn’s-wort, if it do 
not farre surpasse it." An ointment made of the fresh fronds of 
this fern, is still used in country places as a vulnerary, but the 
virtues of the plant are not now so highly esteemed as formerly. 
Lightfoot states that the common people of Scotland so used it in his 
day, and it appears from Mr. Newman's account, that the plant is 
still gathered for the same purpose in Herefordshire, and also in 
some parts of Surrey and Sussex, where it is used under the name 
of “ Adder's-spear ointment.” It is however disregarded by 
medical men of the present day. 
There are some variations of form among the plants of Adder's 
Tongue found in different localities, some having the barren branch 
shortly ovate and blunt,and some narrower and more elongated, 
becoming ovately lance-shaped ; both these are represented in our 
plate. Besides these variations, a somewhat marked variety has 
been observed :— 
1. mierostichum (M.). This is much smaller than the normal 
plant, three to five inches high, the barren branches of a narrow 
oval outline, the fertile linear-oblong apiculate. The plant reaches 
maturity in September, at whieh period the common form has 
decayed. The venation is the same as in the common form. The 
plant was found at Swanbister, Orkney, by Mr. J. T. Syme. It 
appears sufficiently like the O. microstichum of Acharius to be 
regarded as the same form, but is probably rather to be considered 
as a small variety of O. vulgatum than as a distinet species. The 
small size and narrow outline of forms like the present, have led 
some botanists te unite O. vulgatum with O. lusitanicum, such plants 
as those now referred to being taken as connecting links; but this 
combination of species so evidently distinguishable is surely carrying 
the so-called reduction of false species to an extreme length, and is 
‘at least as confusing as the opposite practice. [Plate CXIII B.] 

