FERNS. 225, 



Maiden-hair — Fairy Fern — Adianhim pedatnm (L.) 



This truly elegant fern is widely diffused over our forest lands. 

 You meet with it in the deep, rich leaf-mould of the Beech and Maple 

 woods ; you see its graceful fronds trembling with the lightest breeze on 

 the banks of inland creeks, or growing in tufts at the side, and near the 

 shelter of, half decaying trunks of trees and mossy roots. It languishes 

 and fades in open sunny exposures, loving cool shades and the sheltering 

 boughs of forest trees better than the glare of sunshine and withering 

 winds, so delicate and so fragile are the young fronds. 



When I first saw this lovely fern, I gave it the name of Fairy Fern, 

 never having even seen at that time the British Maiden-hair, its 

 prototype ; and the name, so appropriate, has since become popular, and 

 as we court nationality for our pretty Canadian fern, we are unwilling 

 to confound it with the foreign species, and so continue to call it Fairy 

 Fern, a name so well suited to its graceful form. One could almost 

 fancy that Oberon and his Titania had held their moonlight revels 

 beneath its polished stem and verdant shade, that is if we were disposed 

 — as of course we are not—to believe in the existence of the tiny elves, 

 or " the good people " as I have heard some of our Irish settlers call 

 the fairies. A large full grown frond of Adiantum pedahim will some- 

 times measure a foot across and two feet in height, but more commonly 

 they do not attain to more than half that size. 



The round polished stipe is forked at its upper part, dividing into 

 two equal branches, these are again sub-divided into long slender shafts 

 decreasing in length, so as to give a semi-circular outline, or rather two- 

 thirds of a circle, to the frond ; each of the slender divisions bears 

 numerous almost horizontal pinnules set upon very short footstalks ; 

 in some fronds these little footstalks are very short, so as hardly to be 

 observed, when the pinnules appear more crowded and almost sessile, in 

 others they are longer and give a more expansive appearance to the 

 frond. The upper edge of the pinnule is cleft or cut into by straight 

 gashes ; these again are toothed ; each little pinnule or leaflet is thus 

 sub-divided into three or four sections, which in the fertile frond are 

 rolled back and form an indusiate border over the crowded sori. At 

 first this border looks white, but later in August it takes a very light 

 yellowish-brown tinge. The older and fertile fronds are larger, stouter, 

 and usually of a fuller green than the barren fronds. The root is black, 

 and fibrous ; the fibres finely clothed with a very delicate soft brown wool, 

 which may be seen even without the aid of a magnifying glass. The 

 frond is circinate in vernation ; all the delicate leaf-stems and leaflets 

 being rolled up when they first shoot up from the root, after a fevv days' 

 exposure they flutter out, as a newly hatched butterfly shakes its wings, 



