trrt.0 



COMMON MAIDEN-HAIR SPLEENWORT. 



Asplenium Trichomanes. LiNN^TJS. 



The Common Maiden-hair Spleenwort is but a di- 

 minutive plant, yet it is one of the most elegant of the 

 hardy evergreens, noticeable for the contrast between 

 its purply-black stipes (and rachis) and bright green 

 pinnse, and for th regularity with which the latter are 

 disposed. Its numerous small slender fronds, generally 

 not more than from three to six inches long, though 

 sometimes double that, grow in tufts in rock crannies, 

 and delight in the crevices of old walls. Its fronds 

 are simply pinnate, the pinnae small and numerous, 

 equal-sized, roundishly-oblong, attached to the rachis 

 by a stalk-like projection of their posterior base, the 

 margins entire or crenated (with convex or round 

 teeth). The pinnse are jointed to the rachis, and when 

 old are readily displaced, leaving the black naked 

 rachis among the other fronds. A distinct midvein 

 passes through each pinna, branching on each side into 



