Pinnule of Brake showing reflexed edges
The titles Brake and Bracken are not always confined to their lawful owner. Frequently they are applied to any large ferns, such as the Osmundas, or even to such superficially fern-like plants as Myrica asplenifolia, the so-called sweet fern.
There is a difference of opinion as to the origin of the plant's scientific name, which signifies eagle wing. Some suppose it to be derived from the outline of the heraldic eagle which has been seen by the imaginative in a cross-section of the young stalk. It seems more likely that a resemblance has been fancied between the spreading frond and the plumage of an eagle.
The Brake turns brown in autumn, but does not wither away till the following year.
21. MAIDENHAIR
Adiantum pedatum
Nova Scotia to British Columbia, south to Georgia and Arkansas, in moist woods. Ten to eighteen inches high.
Fronds.—Forked at the summit of the slender black and polished stalk, the recurved branches bearing on one side several slender, spreading pinnate divisions; pinnules obliquely triangular-oblong; sporangia in short fruit-dots on the under margin of a lobe of the frond; indusium formed by the reflexed lobe or tooth of the frond.
For purposes of identification it would seem almost superfluous to describe the Maidenhair, a plant which probably is more generally appreciated than all the rest of the ferns together. Yet, strangely enough, it is confused constantly with other plants and with plants which are not ferns.