[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.
[Illustration: Venus Hair Fern. _Adiantum Capillus-Veneris_]
While our common maidenhair is a northern fern, the Venus-hair Fern is
confined to the southern states. It is rarely found as far north as
Virginia, where it meets, but scarcely overlaps its sister fern. The
medicinal properties of _Adiantum pedatum_ were earlier ascribed to the
more southern species, which is common in Great Britain, but, like many
another old remedy, "the syrup of capillaire" is long since defunct.