FEENS. 



TRUE MAIDEN HAIR. 



ADIANTUM CAPILLUS VEFERIS. 



[Linnaeus and all other Writers.] 



(Fig. 25.) 



THIS is the only British species of the genus, and 

 is easily recognized by its fan-shaped leaflets, and the 

 little wiry black stalks which support them, so thin 

 and hair-like as to have given rise to its specific name. 

 It grows from nine to fifteen inches high, in circular 

 masses, and is of a light bright green colour and 

 very ornamental in appearance. Its slender creeping 

 rhizome is shaggy, with black hair-like scales, and 

 the base of the stipes is of a rich red-brown colour. 

 The pinnules are very irregular in shape, but mostly 

 wedge-shaped, or tapering at the base, with rounded 

 or egg-shaped apex ; and they have generally some 

 variation of a fan-shaped outline. The veins in all the 

 pinnules are two-branched or forked from the base, 

 and extend in straight lines to the margins, where, in 

 the barren fronds, they end in the marginal notches, 

 but in the fertile fronds extend into the indusium, and 

 1 



