A fern with long, undivided fronds that resemble a deer's tongue.
Compound name from 'hart' (male deer) and 'tongue,' referring to the fern's distinctive leaf shape. The descriptive naming convention reflects how common people identified plants based on appearance before scientific nomenclature.
Hart's-tongue fern is a perfect example of how folklore and botany overlap—its unusual strap-like fronds really do look like a slender tongue, and common names preserved this visual metaphor for hundreds of years before we gave it a scientific Latin name.
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