44 
European Ferns. 
A. scutum, and this, if correct, would show it to be a form of that species. The dense 
masses and gracefully-pendant habit of the fronds, their large size and bright light green 
colour (the young ones being at first of a delicate pinkish hue), and the elegantly-fringed 
pinnules of the sterile fronds, combine to render A. Farleyense an object of intense admira- 
tion wherever seen. 
Another species belonging to this group is A. fragile, a native of Jamaica, which has the 
disagreeable peculiarity (from a herbarium point of view) of shedding all its pinnules when 
dried. Sir W. J. Hooker says: — “I have received specimens from Jamaica from five dif- 
ferent persons of this singular plant, all exhibiting the same unfortunate character of 
shedding every leaflet in the act of drying : so that the specimens have come home showing 
the tufted root, a perfect skeleton of wiry stipites (growing in tufts), with the exceedingly 
slender and equally wiry rachis very much branched, and the pinnules all lying apart from the 
plant. Not a specimen is fit for the herbarium nor fit for making a drawing.” 
Besides the above, there are many other very distinct and ornamental species of 
Adiantum, as, for instance, A. macrophyllum, a Tropical and Central American species, 
with long, simply pinnate fronds, which when young are often beautifully tinged with red, 
and equal-sided serrate pinnae. Two other species from the same region — A. digitatum and 
A. Feet — are of climbing habit, having stems several feet in length. Indeed, whether we 
consider the beauty or the variety of form presented by the plants belonging to this genus, 
we shall find it entitled to an equally high position in the order to which it belongs. 
The genus Adiantum is botanically distinguished by the peculiar position of the sori. 
In Pteris, as we have already seen, the sori are placed upon the margins of the pinnae and 
covered over by the indusium ; but in Adiantum the opposite is the case, inasmuch as the 
sori are attached, not to the frond, but to the under surface of the indusium, which con- 
sists, as Mr. Moore has said, “ as it were of a portion of the apex of the lobe, reflexed 
and changed in texture into a thin, bleached, veiny membrane, the veins being the re- 
ceptacles,” and are, therefore, as the same author puts it, “ turned upside down on to 
the surface of the frond.” By this peculiarity plants of this genus may be at once dis- 
tinguished from all other ferns. The free venation of the Adiantums is also noteworthy and 
characteristic; with the exception of four species, which, on account of their netted veins, 
have been placed by some authors in a separate genus (. Hewardia ), all the species have 
the veins quite free and separate. The black shining stipes is, as has already been said, 
also characteristic of the genus. 
TRUE MAIDENHAIR: ADIANTUM CAPILLUS-VENERIS, Linn. 
It is hardly necessary to describe at very great length so well-known and popular a fern 
as this; for, although several species of Adiantum are somewhat closely related, there is 
no European fern with which it can be confounded. The black or dark chestnut, 
shining, slender stems, entirely devoid of scales or hairs, with their thread-like branchlets ( 
and the more or less fan-shaped pinnules, at once distinguish it from any other European 
species. It is a plant of perennial duration ; the fronds which are persistent, are produced 
annually from a slowly creeping caudex, which is black and scaly, about as thick as a quill. 
These fronds droop considerably, are of a bright, cheerful green colour, and of membranous 
texture, are irregular in shape, and vary a good deal in size and in ramification ; when first 
