White Maidenhair.
Also see: True Maidenhair - English Maidenhair - White Maidenhair - Black Maidenhair - Golden Maidenhair
Adiantum album.
A very little plant of the fern kind, and of the nature of the two others just described. Some will be surprised at the calling it a very little plant, having seen leaves a foot long, sold in Covent Garden, under that name; but this is an imposition: they sell a kind of water fern under this name. The real white maidenhair, is not above two inches high. The stalks are very slender, and of a whitish green, not black as in the others. The leaves are divided into a great many small parts, and at first sight they have some resemblance of the leaves of rue. The seeds are contained in brown lumps, behind the leaves, covering the greatest part of the surface.
This is not uncommon in old walls: it has the same virtues with the others against coughs, and a decoction of it is also strongy diuretic, and good against the gravel, and all stoppages of urine.
