Hart's-tongue fern

The most striking and unusual feature of the fern is its simple, strap-shaped undivided fronds. The supposed resemblance of the leaves to the tongue of a hart (an archaic term for a male red deer) gave rise to the common name "hart's-tongue fern".

Asplenium scolopendrium is a common species in the Old World:

The subspecies scolopendrium occurs throughout Europe (including the Caucasus and the British Isles). It is absent however in northeast Europe (Finland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and European Russia). Beyond Europe, it is found in the Middle East, and North Africa (in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya, as well as the Canary Islands). It has also been introduced to the Falkland Islands. Unlike its American counterpart, the scolopendrium of Europe is used for many horticultural uses. Specimens of this variety found in North America (such as in New Brunswick and Ontario in Canada, and Maryland in the United States) are considered naturalized descendants of cultivated plants. In North America, it occurs in rare, widely scattered populations located in different locales:

in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Oaxaca, as well as the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (in Haiti). along the Onondaga Limestone and Niagara Escarpment geological formations in Central New York (present in two counties), southern Ontario (present in seven counties), and the eastern Upper Peninsula in Michigan (present in two counties). …

A manuscript written by Katharine Palmer in the 18th century contains a recipe for hart's-tongue ale.

This fern was used in the 1800s as a medicinal plant in folk medicine as a spleen tonic (hence an archaic name for the genus, "spleenworts") and for other uses.

Asplenium scolopendrium is often grown as an ornamental plant, with several cultivars selected with varying frond form, including with frilled frond margins, forked fronds and cristate forms. The species has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit, as has the cultivar 'Angustatum'. The American variety is reputed to be difficult to cultivate (making conservation efforts for it even more troublesome); due to this, most, if not all, cultivated individuals are derived from the Old World subspecies.