44 CHEILANTHES AND MAIDENHAIR. 
pinne are broadest about the middle and are again pin- 
nate, with a large number of alternating, slender-stalked, 
lobed or toothed pinnules, which are peculiar for being 
one sided, the “ midrib” running along 
the lower margin. These pinnules af- 
ford excellent examples of the charac- 
teristic veining of the fern tribe. 
The rootstock is found just at the 
surface of the earth: It is 
inm~yaw slender, widely creeping 
V9 2550 and branches freely, giving 
off numerous black, wiry 
y, 5 roots. Fresh fronds are 
N4 oes = produced all summer and 
Ney the little colonies of the plants 
BX ob naga. form light, open clumps. Where 
; ie the blade joins the stipe, there is 
Oakey a sharp bend which causes the 
= frond to hang downward until ex- 
panded. Nearly every frond is 
fertile. The sori are scattered 
along the outer margins and are 
MAIDENHAIR FERN, covered with a rather conspicuous 
ELON, gray indusium formed by the 
reflexed and altered segments of the pinnules. 
It is said that this species and Cystopterts bulbifera 
were the first American ferns to be taken to England. 
Until the time of Linnzus it was known as Adiantum 
Canadense. The present specific name is said to be de- 
rived from the branching rootstock, but another deriva- 
tion is given in an old English book which speaks of our 
plant as the ‘foot-shaped Canadian maiden hair.” 
Some of the pinnules are certainly not very unlike the 
