ADIANTUM PEDATUM, Linn^us. 
American Maiden-hair. 
Adiantum PEDATUM I — Root-stock Creeping, scaly, and copi- 
ously rooting ; stalks scattered, a foot or more high, dark-brown 
and polished, forked at the top ; fronds six to fifteen inches broad, 
membranaceous, smooth, spreading nearly horizontally, composed 
of several (six to fourteen) slender divisions radiating from the 
outer side of the recurved branches of the stalk, and bearing 
numerous oblong or triangular-oblong short-stalked pinnules hav- 
ing the lower margin entire and often slightly concave, the base 
parallel with the polished hairlike rachis, the upper margin lobed 
or cleft and bearing a few oblong-lunate or transversely linear 
reflexed involucres ; sporangia on the inner surface of the involu- 
cres (as in all A diant a), borne on the extended apices of the free 
forking veinlets, which proceed from a principal vein closely 
parallel to the lower margin of the pinnule. 
Adiantum pedatum, LiNNaLUS, Sp. PL, p. 1557. — Thunberg, Flora Japonica, 
P- 339- — Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 12 1. — Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., 
p. 107, t. 1 15. — WiLLDENOw, Sp. PL, V., p. 438. — Michaux, FI. Bor. 
Am., ii., p. 263. — PuRSii, FI. Am. Sept., ii., p. 670. — Torrey, FI. 
of N. Y., ii., p. 487. — Gray, Manual. — Ruprecht, Distrib. Crypt. 
Vase, in Imp. Ross., p. 49. — Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 28. — Brack- 
ENRiDGE, Filices of the U. S. Expl. Exped., p. ico. — Eaton, in 
