[Footnote A: It may be stated that capillaire syrup besides the use here indicated was highly esteemed as a pectoral for the relief of difficult breathing.]
[Illustration: Common Maidenhair. Adiantum pedatum (Reading, Mass., Kingman)]
[Illustration: Alpine Maidenhair. Adiantum pedatum, Var. aleuticum (Fernald and Collins, Gaspé County, Quebec, 1906) (From the Gray Herbarium)]
The fern is not hard to cultivate if allowed sufficient moisture and shade. Along with the ostrich fern it makes a most excellent combination in a fern border.
Var. ALEUTICUM, or Alpine Maidenhair. A beautiful northern form especially abundant on the high tableland of the Gaspé Peninsula, Quebec, where it is said to cover hundreds of acres. In the east it is often dwarfed--six to ten inches high, growing in tufts with stout rootstocks, having the pinnules finely toothed instead of rounded and the indusia often lunate, rarely twice as long as broad. (Fernald in Rhodora, November, 1905.) Also found in northern Vermont, and to the northwestward.
(2) THE VENUS-HAIR FERN. Adiantum Capíllus-Veneris
Fronds with a continuous main rachis, ovate-lanceolate, twice pinnate below. Pinnules, fan-shaped on slender, black stalks, long, deeply and irregularly incised. Veins extending from the base of the pinnules like the ribs of a fan.
