4 - 
European Ferns. 
ADIANTUM: THE MAIDENHAIR FERNS. 
have now arrived at one of the most beautiful of the genera of European 
ferns — one which from its graceful habit is deservedly amongst the most 
popular in cultivation, and which is, therefore, very familiar even to those 
least acquainted with ferns in general. The head-quarters of the Maiden- 
hair Ferns — of which about eighty or a hundred species are enumerated 
— is Tropical America ; but they are widely spread over the tropical and 
temperate regions of both the Old and New Worlds, some of them being 
of very extended distribution, as, for instance, our European A. Capillus- 
veneris and also A. cethiopicum , of which we shall have occasion to speak 
mare at length further on. Our common Maidenhair may be taken as 
the type of the genus, the elegantly-divided fronds, and the dark, slender, 
shining stipes being characteristic of many of the species ; but a few of very different 
habit require a passing notice. Most distinct of these, so far as general appearance goes, 
are A. reniforme and A. Parishii, which differ from all the other species in having simple 
fronds. These are small, densely-tufted plants, the former about six inches high, the 
latter much shorter, with dark brown stipes and nearly round fronds, which are from two 
to four inches broad in A. reniforme and smaller in A. Parishii. The former is a native of 
Madeira and the Canaries, a. form sometimes called A. asarifolium occurring in Mauritius 
and at Natal, while A. Parishii is a native of Moulmein and the Malay peninsula. 
A. reniforme was in cultivation in England so long ago as 1699, when it was grown at 
Oxford by Bobart. 
A second well-marked group is that styled in the “ Synopsis Filicum ”. radicantes, the 
plants of which are characterised by having a simply pinnate frond, the rachis of 
which is often elongated to some distance beyond the segments, and takes root at the 
apex. Of this group we have two in cultivation, A. lunulatum and A. caudatum. 
The former is a plant of wide distribution, extending from Hongkong and the Himalayas 
to the Polynesian Islands and Tropical Australia, and found in Madagascar and various 
parts of the African continent, as well as in Tropical America, from Mexico to Brazil ; 
A. caudatum being confined to the Old World, where it extends through the Tropics and 
occurs in the Himalayas and Hongkong. 
Yet another type of Maidenhair is that presented by A. pedatum , the most graceful of 
all North American ferns, which occurs also in Japan, Mandschuria, and in North Hindostan, 
where it ascends to an elevation of nine thousand feet. Specimens from Nootka Sound 
are in the British Museum Herbarium. In this and allied species we have a distinct 
stipes, which is dichotomously forked, the spreading gracefully recurved branches bearing 
on the outer side several slender pinnate divisions. This, as we shall see farther on, 
is one of the few ferns which have been employed in medicine, although it can hardly 
be said to manifest properties of great importance. One point connected with it is in- 
teresting to English fern-growers — it is the most hardy of all the Adiantums. Mr. E. J. 
Lowe says it will withstand a degree of cold which would be certain death to our 
indigenous Maidenhair; and adds that in 1854 he found that plants “lived out of doors 
with the temperature six degrees below zero of Fahrenheit’s thermometer, whilst near them 
