About Ophioglossum vulgatum L.
Ophioglossum vulgatum L. is a perennial plant species. It grows from a rhizome base, reaching 10–20 cm tall, and rarely grows as tall as 30 cm. It produces a two-part frond, divided into a 4-12 cm rounded diamond-shaped leaf sheath and a narrow, branchless spore-bearing spike. Leaf fronds are ovate in shape, with smooth, toothless lobes. The spore-bearing spike has around 10-40 segments on each side.
This species has a wide scattered native distribution across many regions: it occurs throughout temperate to tropical Africa, and across the temperate Northern Hemisphere including Europe, northeastern North America, temperate Asia, and Eurasia.
This small, hard-to-spot plant can grow singly in unimproved pastures, rock crevices, and grassy path-sides. It can also form colonies of hundreds of plants in sand dunes. In Finland, unlike other regions where it typically grows as a calciphile, it grows on seashores. Finland has only sparse suitable lime-rich soil habitat, but the species has found an equivalent growing habitat on Finnish seashores shaped by post-glacial rebound. Land that has just risen from the sea here is often quite neutral, contains mineral salts, and is open and bare enough to suit the plant.
Ophioglossum vulgatum can reproduce vegetatively through new buds that sprout from its rhizome, which allows the plant to form patches. It can also reproduce sexually via spores.
In traditional European folk medicine, the leaves and rhizomes of this plant were used as a poultice for wounds. This remedy was sometimes called the "Green Oil of Charity". A tea made from the plant's leaves was used as a traditional European folk treatment for internal bleeding and vomiting.
