more or less used in conjunction with the Asplenium Adiantum- 
nigrum , and more recently with the American Maiden-hair Fern, 
Adiantum pedatum , L., for medicinal purposes. The fronds of 
our common Maiden-hair are sold in herb-shops, in the dried 
state, when if rubbed, they are slightly odorous; the taste is 
sweetish and bitterish, and they contain tannic or gallic acid, 
bitter extractive, and a volatile oil, and have been chiefly used as 
pectorals in chronic catarrhs, and in the form of a syrup. But 
as the active properties of this Fern are, to say the least, very 
dubious, it is rejected in modern practice, and the Sir op de 
Capillaire is now prepared exclusively of clarified syrup, fla¬ 
voured with orange-flower water; and this, Pereira tells us, is 
sanctioned by the Prussian and Hamburg pharmacopoeias, giv¬ 
ing formulae for a sgrupusflorum aurantii , to be used “ in loco 
syrupi capillorum Veneris/’ 
Plate 41. Pertile plant of Adiantum Capillus- Veneris, L .,—natural size. 
Pig. 1. Pinnule, with sori,— magnified. 2. Apex of the lobe of a fertile pinnule, 
with the involucre forced back, and some of the capsules removed, showing that 
the receptacles of these capsules are on the veins which run up from the pin¬ 
nule into the involucre ,—more magnified. 
