ABIANTUM. 173 



tlie property of repelling water. It is, in fact, impossible 

 to wet the surface of their pinnules, when the fronds are 

 in a fresh state and in good health, the water being cast off 

 as though from a waxy surface. 



Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, Linnaeus. 



The Maidenhair Fern. (Plate XVI. fig. 1.) 



A small evergreen species, furnished with a very short 

 creeping stem, which is clothed with small black scales, 

 and bears delicate, graceful, somewhat drooping fronds, of 

 six inches to a foot high. These fronds are usually of an. 

 irregularly ovate form, sometimes elongate, occasionally 

 approaching to linear. When highly developed, the fronds 

 are about thrice pinnate ; but the less vigorous fronds are 

 usually only twice pinnate, with alternate pinnaj and 

 pinnules ; and sometimes fronds are found which are only 

 once pinnate. The ultimate pinnules, or leaflets, are very 

 irregular in shape, but for the most part have a wedge- 

 shaped or tapering base, and a more or less rounded and 

 oblique apex, and they have generally some variation of a 

 fan-shaped or rhomboidal outline. The margin is more 

 or less deeply lobed, the apices of the lobes in the fertile 

 pinnules being reflexed and changed into membranous in- 



