"The tongue fern, which some call asplenium or the mule’s fern, has leaves like those of the dragon arum, curved and shaped like a half-moon. It has many thin roots, but it has neither a stem, nor flowers, nor seed. It grows in stony places and is bitter in taste. Drunk in vinegar it reduces the spleen." (f. 142v)
This plant grows in cool places, particularly with high humidity, in northern Italy and Spain, and in France. Widely used in medicine as a vulnerary and for chest and liver ailments in ancient times until the fifteenth century according to José Quer, a seventeenth-century Spanish botanist. This species is also called mule’s spleenwort and has sagittate, i.e. arrow-shaped, fronds hence its specific epithet.
Ramón Morales Valverde
Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid
(Extract from the commentary volume of Mattioli's Dioscorides illustrated by Cibo)
