Aspi.enium. 
93 
several parts of the Australian continent, as well as in Tasmania and New Zealand ; and 
occurs also in the Sandwich Islands. Passing to the New World, we find the English Maidenhair 
throughout the United States, and also in Canada, from Montreal to Nootka Sound ; it is found 
also in Mexico and Guatemala, in the latter region ascending to the height of ten thousand 
feet; also in Peru and Quito; and, in the West Indies, in Cuba and Jamaica. It will thus 
be seen that the geographical range of A. Trichomanes is a very wide one. 
The name Trichomanes — which is used by Dioscorides — is from the Greek trichoma , “ a 
growth of hair,” and bears reference to the property which this plant was supposed to possess 
in promoting or restoring the hair. Lonicer, in 1551, applies the name more particularly to 
the plant now under consideration, but speaks of it as being used with a much more general 
signification. However, it seems to have been generally believed in as a “ hair-restorer,” perhaps 
on the theory of the “ doctrine of signatures,” to which reference has already been made, the 
black, hair-like stems suggesting its employment with matters connected with the hair. 
Gerard says, “ The lie wherein it hath beene sodden, or laid to infuse, is good to wash the 
head, causing the scurffe and scales to fall off, and hair to grow in places that are pild and 
bare.” According to Parkinson, writing a little later, it still more closely resembled the 
vaunted “hair-restorers” of the present day. He says, “It both stayeth the shedding of the 
haire, and causeth it to grow thicke.” It was supposed to possess other “ vertues ” at a period 
when every plant was endowed with almost as many attributes and quasi-miraculous pro- 
perties as a quack medicine of our own time. In our description of the true Maidenhair 
(Adiantum Capillus-veneris) we quoted * some of the properties attributed to it from William 
Langham’s “Garden of Health,” published in 1633. This author says, that the “English 
Maidenhaire hath the same vertues that Capillus Veneris hath ; being sodden with wine or 
hydromell, and drunke dayly, it helpeth the obstructions of the liver, the jaundies, griefes 
of the lungs, difficulties of breath ... it softneth the hardnesse and swelling of the 
milt, expelleth poyson that hath been drunk . . . and breaketh the stone.” Not a bad 
catalogue this for a plant which, in our degenerate age, has no reputation for usefulness of 
any kind. Our illustrious countryman John Ray mentions its use in diseases of the chest 
and lungs, and also in cases of strangury and calculus ; while we learn from Lightfoot f 
that the country-people in Scotland sometimes give a tea or syrup of it for coughs and other 
complaints of the chest, though it is rarely sold in shops. Like so many other ferns, it 
seems to have been employed, either as a substitute for the true Maidenhair, or on account 
of its own supposed merits, in the manufacture of capillaire ; and one of its French names 
is Capillaire rouge, though it is difficult to see in what way it could have been associated 
with a red hue. A large number of ferns are known as capillaire in France, no doubt 
from their employment in the preparation of the syrup so-called, which we described at 
page 47 : thus the Wall Rue (A. Ruta-muraria ) is Capillaire blanc — a name also applied to 
Polypodium rhoeticum ; the black Maidenhair Spleenwort {A. A diantum-nigrum) is Capillaire 
noir ; Adiantum pedatum is Capillaire du Canada; A. tenerum, Capillaire du Mexique ; and 
a moss, Polytrichum commune, Capillaire dore- — the last-named having formerly been classed 
with the Maidenhairs, and called Golden Maidenhair in English. 
The English Maidenhair is so very distinct from any other British fern that there is no 
danger of its being mistaken for a different species. The only fern at all like it is the Green 
Spleenwort (A. viride), and from this it is. at once distinguished by the rachis, which here is 
of a dark, shining, chestnut colour, or purplish-black, while in A. viride it is green. The fronds 
* Page 48. 
f “Flora Scotica” (1777), p. 663. 
