Herb. Popular name of a genus of ferns (Ophioglossum Linn.) that bears the fructification on a distinct simple spike springing from the base of the barren frond, which clasps it when young, so as to suggest the mouth and tongue of a serpent.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 135. Adders tonge is an herbe of a maruelous strange nature.
1597. Gerarde, Herball, II. lxxxiv. § 3, 327. Adders toong groweth in moist medowes throughout most parts of Englande.
1794. Martyn, Rousseau’s Bot., xxxii. 488. Adder’s-Tongue has the fructification on a spike, in a jointed row along each side of it; when they are ripe, these joints gape transversely.
1820. Keats, Lamia, II. 224. The leaves of willow and of adder’s tongue.
1862. Ansted, Channel Islands, II. viii. (ed. 2), 183. Two species of adder’s-tongue are found in Guernsey.
2. Dialectally, applied loosely to various other plants, superficially more or less resembling the above, as Wake Robin, Lily of the Valley, etc. See Britten and Holland, Eng. Plant Names.
