A small fern with pinnate fronds that grows on rocks and walls, known by the scientific name Asplenium ceterach.
From Medieval Latin, possibly from Arabic origins. The word has been used in European botanical texts since the Middle Ages to refer to this specific fern species.
Ceterach ferns are tiny but tough—they thrive on dry stone walls where almost nothing else grows, and they were valued in medieval medicine as supposed remedies for spleen problems, which is why they're also called spleenwort.
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