41 . 
THE COMMON MAIDENHAIR SPLEENWORT. 
Asj.rfenium Irichomcuies. 
Plate 6, Figs. 6 & 7, Page 235. 
The specific common name of £ Maidenhair ’ given to this 
Fern — a name which has the same meaning as the specific 
appellation of trichomanei s- — refers to the somewhat hairlike 
and purple-black appearance of its stipes and racliis. It is 
noticeable that the pinnules, when they have become old, 
are brittle and easily drop from the racliis, leaving the bare 
stems behind. When a large number of these thin blackish- 
coloured stems are left standing, as they frequently are for 
a long time, they have very much the appearance of a tuft 
of hair ; and this circumstance has probably helped to 
suggest the name of this species. Like the Wall Rue, it is 
a very familiar form amongst our native Spleenworts, often 
growing on garden, house, and church walls in villages and 
towns ; seeming thus, as it were, to court the companionship 
of man. Beyond town limits it grows abundantly on rocks, 
bridge- arches, and stony embankments of all kinds, its wiry 
rootlets inserting themselves between rocky crevices seamed 
with earth and sand, or between the joints of masonry where 
the mortar has commenced to crumble and to give place to 
air and moisture, and to the almost imperceptible dust of 
