A DIANTUM. 
45 
produced, in spring, three or five pinnae only appear, which shortly become divided into 
pinnules. The mature fronds themselves vary from four or six inches to a foot and a half, or 
even more, in length (including the stipes), their usual length being about midway between these 
extremes ; their general outline is more or less ovate, or sometimes somewhat triangular. The 
pinnae are alternate, as are also the pinnules ; the latter vary a good deal in form, those on the 
fertile fronds being fanshaped or wedgeshaped below, and divided above into a number of lobes, 
the terminal portion of which is reflexed and changed into a thin bleached membrane, upon the 
inner surface of which the sori are borne in clusters. In the barren fronds, which are less frequent, 
the terminal lobes are not thus reflexed, but are carried onward, the outline of the pinnule then 
presenting a sharply cut or serrated, instead of a rounded, appearance. The pinnules are beauti- 
fully lined in a delicate fan-like manner, with numerous closely-placed forked veins radiating 
from the base, the veins remaining distinct from each other, and not forming a network. Mr. 
Newman says that when grown in a Wardian case the lobes of the pinnules 
sometimes become viviparous at the extremities, the spores actually vegetating 
while in siiu, and the young plants taking root, like parasites, in the substance 
of the old one. 
In Europe the Maidenhair is dispersed over the central and southern 
portions, being most abundant in the Mediterranean region. It is frequently 
met with in most parts of Spain and Portugal? on rocks and in caverns, and 
about wells and fountains, ascending in the Sierra Nevada to about four 
thousand feet. France, Italy, Switzerland, Hungary, Germany, Dalmatia, 
Belgium, and Holland all produce it ; it abounds in Sicily, and it is also found 
1 _ J CAPILLUS-VENERIS, 
in Turkey and Greece, in great quantity. One of its best known and most seedling. 
classical localities in Italy is that of the Fountain of Egeria, where it occurs in great beauty 
and luxuriance. 
“ The mosses of the fountain still are sprinkled 
With thine Elysian water-drops ; the face 
Of the cave-guarded spring, with years unwrinkled, 
Reflects the meek-eyed genius of the place, 
Whose green, wild margin now no more erase 
Art’s works ; nor must the delicate waters sleep 
’Prisoned in marble ; bubbling from the base 
Of the cleft statue, with a gentle leap 
The rill runs o’er ; and, round, ferns, flowers, and ivy creep 
Fantastically tangled.” 
Bory and Chaubard, in their “Flore de la Peloponnese,” state that in that region 
under favourable circumstances its fronds attain the length of two feet or more, and are 
