Adiantum capillus-veneris - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Adiantum capillus-veneris, the Southern maidenhair fern, black maidenhair fern, and venus hair fern, is a species of fern

Fern

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...

in the genus Adiantum with a subcosmopolitan worldwide distribution. It is cultivated as a popular garden fern

Ornamental plant

Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...

and houseplant

Houseplant

A houseplant is a plant that is grown indoors in places such as residences and offices. Houseplants are commonly grown for decorative purposes, positive psychological effects, or health reasons such as indoor air purification...

Distribution

Adiantum capillus-veneris is native to the southern half of the United States from California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

to the Atlantic coast, through Mexico and Central America, to South America. It is also native to Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

, the Levant

Levant

The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...

in Western Asia, and Australasia

Australasia

Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea, and neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. The term was coined by Charles de Brosses in Histoire des navigations aux terres australes...

.

It is found in temperate climates from warm-temperate to tropical, where the moisture content is high but not saturating, in the moist, well-drained sand, loam or limestone many habitat

Habitat

* Habitat , a place where a species lives and grows*Human habitat, a place where humans live, work or play** Space habitat, a space station intended as a permanent settlement...

s, including rainforests, shrub and woodlands, broadleaf and coniferous forests, and desert cliff seep

Seep (hydrology)

A Seep is a moist or wet place where water, usually groundwater, reaches the earth's surface from an underground aquifer.-Description:Seeps are usually not of sufficient volume to be flowing beyond their above-ground location. They are part of the limnology-geomorphology system...

s, and spring

Spring (hydrosphere)

A spring—also known as a rising or resurgence—is a component of the hydrosphere. Specifically, it is any natural situation where water flows to the surface of the earth from underground...

s. It often may be seen growing on moist, sheltered and shaded sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

or limestone

Limestone

Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate . Many limestones are composed from skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral or foraminifera....

formations, generally south-facing in the southern hemisphere, north-facing in the north, or in gorges. It occurs throughout Africa in moist places by streams. On moist sandstone cliffs it grows in full or partial shade, even when unprotected.

Description

The Adiantum capillus-veneris fern grows from 6 to 12 in (15.2 to 30.5 cm) in height; its fronds arising in clusters from creeping rhizomes 20 to 70 cm (7.9 to 27.6 in) tall, with very delicate, light green frond

Frond

The term frond refers to a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group...

s much subdivided into pinnae 5 to 10 mm (0.196850393700787 to 0.393700787401575 in) long and broad; the frond rachis is black and wiry.

Cultivation

Adiantum capillus-veneris is cultivated and widely available around the world for planting in natural landscape

Natural landscaping

.Natural landscaping, also called native gardening, is the use of native plants, including trees, shrubs, groundcover, and grasses which are indigenous to the geographic area of the garden.-Maintenance:...

native plant

Native plant

Native plant is a term to describe plants endemic or naturalized to a given area in geologic time.This includes plants that have developed, occur naturally, or existed for many years in an area...

s and traditional shade garden

Shade garden

Shade gardens are gardens planted and grown in areas with little or no direct sunlight during the day, either under trees or on the shady sides of buildings. Shade gardening presents certain challenges, in part because only certain plants are able to grow in shady conditions. Very few edible plants...

s, for outdoor container garden

Container garden

Container gardening is the practice of growing plants exclusively in containers instead of planting them in the ground. Pots, traditionally made of terracotta but now more commonly plastic, and windowboxes have been the most commonly seen. Small pots are commonly called flowerpots. In some cases,...

s, and commonly as an indoor houseplant

Houseplant

Conservation

The fern is listed as an endangered species

Endangered species

An endangered species is a population of organisms which is at risk of becoming extinct because it is either few in numbers, or threatened by changing environmental or predation parameters...

in North Carolina (as southern maidenhair-fern) and threatened species

Threatened species

Threatened species are any speciesg animals, plants, fungi, etc.) which are vulnerable to endangerment in the near future.The World Conservation Union is the foremost authority on threatened species, and treats threatened species not as a single category, but as a group of three categories,...

in Kentucky (as venus hair fern), due to loss of Appalachia

Appalachia

Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...

n habitat.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.