Maidenhair Ferns

Media
Photo of a northern maidenhair fern
Scientific Name
Adiantum spp. (2 in Missouri)
Family
Pteridaceae (maidenhair ferns)
Description

Missouri’s two native maidenhair ferns (genus Adiantum) are perennials that spread with short-creeping rhizomes.

Each frond is divided once or twice, and the leaflets (pinnules) are generally wedge-shaped or rectangular, with lobed outer tips. The leaflet veins are easy to see, and they divide by twos one to several times, forming a fan pattern (this pattern of the veins splitting again and again into twos is called dichotomous venation, similar to a gingko leaf). The fanlike leaf veins are a key identifying feature. The leaves are deciduous: they drop off in winter or during dry conditions.

Spores are produced on the undersides of the leaflet lobes, along the outer margins, and are hidden by the bent-under leaflet edges.

Spores are produced June–August.

Missouri has two species of maidenhair ferns:

  • Northern maidenhair fern (A. pedatum var. pedatum) is common statewide and is one of the most widespread ferns in Missouri. Its leaves are erect, with each leafstalk (petiole) branching into two arching stalks (rachises) at the tip, with each of these bearing additional stalks (the featherlike pinnae) attached along the upper (inner) side of each stalk (rachis); the pinnae bear the short-stalked leaflets (pinnules). In spring, the fiddleheads are pink. Sometimes called five-fingered fern, this species looks something like a little palm tree.
  • Southern maidenhair fern, or Venus hair fern (A. capillus-veneris), is scattered mostly in the Ozarks. Its fronds droop, and the leafstalks (petioles) don’t branch at the tips. Instead, the leafstalk is straight or somewhat bending as the leaflets branch off of it. This fern forms drooping, nonbranching clumps.
Other Common Names
Five-Fingered Ferns
Size

Frond length: 12–30 inches (northern maidenhair fern); 5–30 inches (southern maidenhair fern).

Where To Find

Northern maidenhair fern is scattered statewide. Southern maidenhair fern is mostly found in the Ozark and Ozark Border regions.

Both Missouri species of maidenhair ferns usually occur in moist, rich, cool locations.

Southern maidenhair fern (the nonbranching one) commonly grows on moist ledges and crevices of dolomite bluffs and boulders along streams, rivers, and spring branches. It can grow in dense colonies on bluffs along many Ozark spring-fed streams and rivers.

Northern maidenhair fern (the branching one) is less common on rocks or boulders; instead, it is more often found on rich slopes of ravines in mesic (moist) upland forests.

Native Missouri ferns.

Life Cycle

Ferns have a two-parted life cycle. The portion of the cycle we usually notice represents the sporophyte generation, since it produces spores (not eggs or sperm). Each spore can germinate and become a plant representing the other half of the cycle, the gametophyte.

People rarely notice the gametophyte-generation plants, which are tiny, green, flat, heart- or kidney-shaped leaflike structures. The gametophytes produce gametes (eggs and sperm), which must unite to create a new sporophyte plant. Water is needed in order for the sperm to swim to the eggs.

Several species of maidenhair ferns are cultivated as ornamentals indoors and outdoors. Their delicate feathery or lacy leaves with shiny dark stems makes them popular. Delta maidenhair fern and silver-dollar fern (A. raddianum and A. peruvianum) are two hardy, nonnative species that are often grown as houseplants.

The genus name, Adiantum, has Greek roots and means “unwetted”: water rolls off the leaflets.

Maidenhair ferns have had a variety of medicinal uses by cultures worldwide, and some people still use them.

Plants that grow in wet places help to hold the soil in place during rains and floods.

Certain aphids, mealy bugs, an other small insects apparently suck the juices of maidenhair leaves, but mammals and other vertebrates generally do not eat it. Horticulturalists label some maidenhair ferns as “deer-resistant” since deer will not eat the foliage.

Unlike mosses and liverworts, which also have a two-parted life cycle involving spores, ferns and fern allies have a veinlike vascular system for carrying nutrients and water throughout their roots, stems, and leaves. As vascular plants, ferns are something like flowering plants. But unlike flowering plants, they do not have flowers, fruits, or seeds.

In case you’re wondering, the ginkgo tree (Ginkgo biloba) is sometimes called “maidenhair tree” because of its fan-shaped leaves with dichotomous venation — but ginkgos, which produce seeds and not spores, are not ferns at all.

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A very simple way of thinking about the green world is to divide the vascular plants into two groups: woody and nonwoody (or herbaceous). But this is an artificial division; many plant families include some species that are woody and some that are not. The diversity of nonwoody vascular plants is staggering! Think of all the ferns, grasses, sedges, lilies, peas, sunflowers, nightshades, milkweeds, mustards, mints, and mallows — weeds and wildflowers — and many more!
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