The genus Adiantum is a large one containing many handsome species both tropical and temperate, well known in greenhouse and hothouse cultivation.
Not unlike the runner, though growing in a very different way, are the bud-plants formed on the fronds of several kinds of ferns belonging to the genera Asplenium, Woodwardia, Polystichum, Lastrea, Adiantum, Cystopteris, &c. In some of these (Adiantum caudatusn, Polystichum lepidocaulon) the rachis of the frond is lengthened out much like the string of the strawberry runner, and bears a plant at its apex.
On account of the resemblance of the leaves to those of some species of Adiantum, the appellation maiden-hair tree has long been given to Ginkgo biloba.
Adiantum; the lowest vein in each half of the lamina follows a course parallel to the edge, and gives off numerous branches, which fork repeatedly as they spread in a palmate manner towards the leaf margin.
The frequent occurrence of such names as Asplenium, Adiantum, Davallia, and other Polypodiaceous genera in lists of fossil ferns is thoroughly misleading.