42 
BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
bellulatwn to Japan: the former has hispid surfaces and small 
roundish involucres ; and the latter has rusty-fibrillose rachises, 
coriaceous pinnules, and transversely oblong sub-confluent involu- 
cres. Ad. patens follows the form and branching of our fern 
very closely; but the two Old-World species often depart from it, 
and show a tendency to develop branches on one or other of the 
longest pinnae, thus indicating an approach towards a pyramidal 
structure of the frond. 
The remaining Adianta of the United States are Ad. Ca- 
pilliis- Veneris (Linnaeus), found from North Carolina to Califor- 
nia ; Ad. emarginatum (Hooker), which is the Ad. Chilense of 
American botanists, but not of Kaulfuss, found in California and 
Oregon; and Ad. tricholepis (Fee), which occurs in Texas and 
California, and extends southwards to Central America. 
The American Maiden-hair is easily cultivated, and will grow 
very freely either in a shaded corner of a garden or in the house, 
and is perhaps more elegant and graceful than any other of our 
ferns, the climbing-fern scarcely excepted. Josselyn evidently 
mistook it for the Venus-hair, one of the chief ingredients in a 
syrup which was formerly a famous remedy for nearly all ail- 
ments, and said, “ The Apothecaries for shame now will substi- 
tute Wall-Rue no more for Maiden Hair, since it grows in abun- 
dance in New-England, from whence they may have good store.” 
Mr. Emerton’s figure is taken from a living plant, and shows the frond 
as it appears before it has been flattened in a collector’s portfolio. 
