Maidenhair fern
Adiantum capillus-veneris
Family · Pteridaceae · Harmless
The most delicate fern in our flora, growing only where water trickles permanently: well walls, springs, seeping rock faces. If it is there, the water never stops, not even in August.
Walls and rocks · Streams and ditches · Uplands
Also known asVenus hair fern, common maidenhair
How to tell it
Thin, black, glossy stalks like hair wire, which is where the name comes from. Fan-shaped, pale green leaflets with a cut margin, attached at one corner only. Water runs over it without wetting the leaf, which repels water completely.
What it is confused with
Maidenhair spleenwort
Asplenium trichomanes
The names get mixed up and both have a black axis. True maidenhair has fan leaflets attached at one corner and lives only on wet rock; maidenhair spleenwort has round paired leaflets and lives on dry walls.
What it is for
It was among Europe's most sold medicinal plants, the base of capillaire cough syrup, made with sugar and maidenhair water. Today its value is different: it is an infallible indicator of a permanent spring, and the places it grows are water points worth marking on a map.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
No approved contributions for this entry yet.
Nothing appears here without a person reading it first. Contributions do not replace the entry or its warnings: until a botanist confirms, what is written above stands.