How to know the ferns

This is a much larger and more showy plant than the Crested Shield Fern. Its tall, broad, hardy-looking fronds are found in our moist woods. While not rare it is exclusive in its habits, and cannot be classed with such every-day finds as its kinsmen, the Marsh, Spinulose, Evergreen, and Christmas Ferns.

44. GOLDIE'S FERN

Aspidium Goldianum (Dryopteris Goldieana)

In the golden twilight of the deeper woods this stately plant unfurls its tall, broad, bright-green fronds, studded on their backs with the round fruit-dots which are so noticeable in this Aspidium, adding much to their attractiveness by the suggestion of fertility.

This plant ranks with the Osmundas and with the Ostrich Fern in size and vigorous beauty. Its retiring habits give it a reputation for rarity or at least for exclusiveness.

45. EVERGREEN WOOD FERN. MARGINAL SHIELD FERN

Aspidium marginale (Dryopteris marginalis)

Above the black leaf-mould in our rocky northern woods rise the firm, graceful crowns formed by the blue-green fronds of the Evergreen Wood Fern. The plant bears a family likeness to the Crested Shield Fern, but its conspicuously marginal fruit-dots identify it at sight.

It is interesting to read that it comes "nearer being a tree-fern than any other of our species, the caudex covered by the bases of fronds of previous seasons, sometimes resting on bare rocks for four or five inches without roots or fronds" (see Eaton, p. 70). This peculiarity in the plant's growth is often striking and certainly suggests the tree-ferns of the green-house.

Frequently in this species I notice what is more or less common to nearly all ferns, the exquisite contrast in the different shades of green worn by the younger and older fronds and the charming effect produced when the deep green of the centre of a frond shades away in the most delicate manner toward its apex and the tips of its pinnules.

As its English title signifies, the Evergreen Wood Fern flourishes throughout the winter. In one of the October entries in his journal, Thoreau records his satisfaction in the endurance of the hardy ferns:

46. FRAGRANT SHIELD FERN

Aspidium fragrans (Dryopteris fragrans)

The Fragrant Shield Fern thrives in a colder climate than that chosen by many of its kinsmen. Though found in the White Mountains, in the Green Mountains (where it climbs to an elevation of four thousand feet), in the Adirondacks, and in other special localities of about the same latitude, yet it is rare till we journey farther north. It loves the crevices of shaded cliffs or mossy rocks, often thriving best in the neighborhood of rushing brooks and waterfalls. Frequently it seems to seek the most inaccessible spots, as if anxious to evade discovery. Mr. J. A. Bates, of Randolph, Vt., writes that he first saw this little plant through a telescope from the piazza of the Summit House on Mount Mansfield on an apparently inaccessible ledge, the only instance in my experience when the fern student has sought this method of observation, suggesting "Ferns Through a Spy-glass" as a companion volume to "Birds Through an Opera-glass." But even the most carefully chosen spots are not safe from invasion, as Mr. Bates tells us, for some unprincipled persons, having felled neighboring trees and constructed a rude ladder, have succeeded in uprooting every plant from the Fragrant Shield Fern Cliff on Mount Mansfield.

47. BRAUN'S HOLLY FERN

Aspidium aculeatum, var. Braunii (Dryopteris Braunii)

This fern is said to have been first discovered by Frederick Pursh in 1807 in Smuggler's Notch, Mount Mansfield, Vt. In the Green Mountains and in the Catskills several stations have been established. It has been found also in the Adirondacks and in Oswego County, N. Y., and it is now reported as common in the rocky woods of northern Maine, and by mountain brooks in northern New England.

Braun's Holly Fern is one of the numerous varieties of the Prickly Shield Fern or A. aculeatum (D. aculeata).

Though few of our fern-students will have an opportunity to follow the Prickly Shield Fern through all the forms it assumes in different parts of the world, yet undoubtedly many of them will have the pleasure of seeing in one of its lonely and lovely haunts our own variety, Braun's Holly Fern.

48. COMMON POLYPODY. SNAKE FERN

Polypodium vulgare

Strangely enough, the Polypody, one of our most abundant and ubiquitous ferns, is not rightly named, if it is noticed at all, by nine out of ten people who come across it in the woods or along the roadside. Yet the plant has a charm peculiarly its own, a charm arising partly from its vigor, from the freshness of its youth and the endurance of its old age, partly from its odd outlines, and partly from its usual environment, which entitles it to a more ready and universal recognition.

"The cheerful community of the polypody," as Thoreau calls it, thrives best on the flat surfaces of rocks. I recall the base of certain great cliffs where the rocky fragments, looking as though hurled from above by playful giants, are thickly covered with these plants, their rich foliage softening into beauty otherwise rugged outlines. Usually the plant is found in somewhat shaded places. Occasionally it grows on the trunks of trees and on fallen logs, as well as on rocks and cliffs.

A few weeks ago I found its fronds prettily curtaining the cleverly hidden nest of a pair of black and white creepers. It is with good reason that these birds are noted for their skill in concealing their dwelling-place. This special afternoon, when persuaded by their nervous chirps and flutterings about the rocky perch where I was sitting that the young ones were close by, I began an investigation of my precipitous and very slippery surroundings which was not rewarded for an hour or more. Not till I had climbed several feet over the side of the cliff to a narrow shelf below, broken through a thicket of blueberries, and pushed aside the tufts of Polypody which hid the entrance to the dark crevice in the rocks beyond, did I discover the little nest holding the baby creepers.

Thoreau writes of the Polypody with peculiar sympathy:

49. LONG BEECH FERN

Phegopteris polypodioides (P. Phegopteris)

Of the three species of Phegopteris native to the northeastern States P. polypodioides, commonly called the Long Beech Fern, is the one I happen to have encountered oftenest.

It is a less delicate plant than either of its sisters, the effect of the larger and older specimens being rather hardy, yet its downy, often light-green, triangular frond is exceedingly pretty, with a certain oddity of aspect which it owes to the lowest pair of pinnæ, these being conspicuously deflexed and turned forward. This peculiarity gives it a decided individuality and renders it easy of identification.

The Long Beech Fern I have found growing alternately in company with the Oak Fern and the Broad Beech Fern. It loves the damp woods, clambering over the roots of trees or carpeting thickly the hollows that lie between.

50. BROAD BEECH FERN. HEXAGON BEECH FERN

Phegopteris hexagonoptera

In many ways this plant resembles its sister, the Long Beech Fern, but usually it is a larger plant, with more broadly triangular fronds, which wear, to my mind, a brighter, fresher, more delicate green. In the Long Beech Fern the two lower pairs of pinnæ differ little in length and breadth, while in the Broad Beech Fern the lowest pair are decidedly larger and broader than the next pair. The wing along the rachis formed by the basal segments of the pinnæ seems to me more conspicuous in the latter than in the former.

The range of the Broad Beech Fern extends farther south than does that of its two kinsmen, neither of which are found, I believe, south of Virginia. It seeks also more open and usually drier woods. Its leaves are fragrant.

Williamson says that its fronds are easily decolorized and that they form a "good object for double-staining, a process well known to microscopists."

51. OAK FERN

Phegopteris Dryopteris

So far as I remember, my first encounter with the Oak Fern was in a cedar swamp, famous for its growth of showy lady's-slippers. One July day in the hope of finding in flower some of these orchids, I visited this swamp. It lay in a semi-twilight, caused by the dense growth of cedars and hemlocks. Prostrate on the spongy sphagnum below were hosts of uprooted trees, so overrun with trailing strands of partridge-vine, twin-flower, gold-thread, and creeping snowberry, and so soft and yielding to the feet that they seemed to have become one with the earth. The stumps and far-reaching roots of the trees that had been cut or broken off above ground, instead of having been uprooted bodily, had also become gardens of many delicate woodland growths. Some of these decaying stumps and outspreading roots were thickly clothed with the clover-like leaflets of the wood-sorrel, here and there nestling among them a pink-veined blossom. On others I found side by side gleaming wild strawberries and dwarf raspberries, feathery fronds of Maidenhair, tall Osmundas, the Crested and the Spinulose Shield Ferns, the leaves of the violet, foam-flower, mitrewort, and many others of the smaller, wood-loving plants. Among these stumps were pools of water filled with the dark, polished, rounded leaves of the wild calla, and bordered by beds of moss which cushioned the equally shining but long and pointed leaves of the Clintonia. Near one of these pools grew a patch of delicate, low-spreading plants, evidently ferns. It needed only one searching look at the broad, triangular, light-green fronds—suggesting somewhat those of a small Brake—with roundish fruit-dots below to assure me that I had found the Oak Fern.

Every lover of plants or of birds or of any natural objects will appreciate the sense of something more exciting than satisfaction which I experienced as I knelt above the little plantation and gathered a few slender-stemmed fronds. One such find as this compensates for many hours of fatigue and discomfort, or intensifies the enjoyment of an already happy day. The expedition had justified itself with the first full view of the solemn, beautiful depths of the cedar forest. The discovery of the Oak Fern provided a tangible token of what we had accomplished, and when finally we found the tall, leafy plants of the showy lady's-slipper, without a single blossom left upon them, our disappointment was so mild as to be almost imperceptible.

As is often the case, having once discovered the haunt of the Oak Fern, it ceased to be a rarity. It joined the host of plants which climbed over the mossy stumps and fallen logs, and at times it fairly carpeted the ground beneath the cedars and hemlocks.

The Bulblet Bladder Fern is never more at home than when it grows close to falling water, clinging to rocks dark and wet with spray. It seems to reflect the very spirit of the waterfall, all its life and grace, as it springs from the dripping ledges, clothing them with a diaphanous garment of delicate green which vies with their neighboring veil of white, now pouring over some rocky shelf a solid but silent mass of pale luxuriant foliage, now trailing down the cliff its long, tapering fronds, side by side with silvery strands of water, close to tufts of wind-blown, spray-tipped harebells.

In its manner of growth, as well as in its slender, tapering outline, the Bulblet Bladder Fern is so individual that there can be no difficulty in identifying the full-sized fertile fronds, even in the absence of the little bulbs which grow on the under side of the frond, usually at the base of the pinnæ. The sterile fronds are shorter and broader in proportion, and not so easily identified.

This plant may be ranked among the earliest ferns of the year. In May or June, if we climb down to the brook where the columbine flings out her brilliant, nodding blossoms, we find the delicate little fronds, just uncurled, clinging to the steep, moist rocks, or perhaps beyond, in the deeper woods, they nestle among the spreading roots of some great forest tree. Their "fragile greenness" is very winning. As the plant matures, attaining at times a height of nearly two feet, it loses something of this first delicate charm. By the end of July its fruit has ripened, its spores are discharged, and the plant disappears. Frequently, if not always, a new crop springs up in August. We are enchanted to discover tender young fronds making patches of fresh green in every crevice of the rocks among which the stream forces its precipitous way. Once more the woods are flavored with the essence of spring. In our delight in this new promise we forget for a moment to mourn the vanishing summer.

The outline of the Common Bladder Fern suggests that of the Obtuse Woodsia. The two plants might be difficult to distinguish were it not for the difference in their indusia. At maturity the indusium of the Common Bladder Fern usually disappears, leaving the fruit-dot naked, while that of the Obtuse Woodsia is fastened underneath the fruit-dot and splits apart into jagged, spreading lobes.

The sterile fronds of the Slender Cliff Brake also have been thought to resemble this fern, in whose company it often grows.

Williamson says that the Common Bladder Fern is easily cultivated either in mounds or on rock-work.

Last Decoration Day, while clambering over some rocky cliffs in the Berkshire Hills, I found the Rusty Woodsia growing in masses so luxuriant to the eye and so velvety to the touch that it hardly suggested the bristly looking plant which one finds later in the summer.

This fern reverses the usual order of things, being gray-haired in youth and brown-haired in old age, with the result that in May its effect is a soft, silvery green. But even in August, if you chance upon a vigorous tuft springing from some rocky crevice, despite its lack of delicacy and its bristle of red-brown hairs or chaff, the plant is an attractive one.

Environment has much to do with the charm of ferns. The first plant of this species I ever identified grew on a rocky shelf within a few feet of a stream which flowed swift and cold from the near mountains. Close by, from the forked branches of a crimson-fruited mountain maple, hung the dainty, deserted nest of a vireo. Always the Rusty Woodsia seems to bring me a message from that abode of solitude and silence.

The Blunt-lobed Woodsia is not rare on rocks and stony hill-sides in Maine and Northern New York. It is found frequently in the valley of the Hudson. Though not related to the Common Bladder Fern (C. fragilis), it has somewhat the same general appearance. Its fronds, however, are usually both broader and longer, and its stalk and pinnæ are slightly downy. Its range does not vary greatly from that of the Common Bladder Fern, but usually it grows in more exposed spots and sometimes basks in strong sunshine.

Meehan says the Blunt-lobed Woodsia is found along the Wissahickon Creek, Penna., on dry walls in shady places. "One of its happiest phases," he continues, "is toward the fall of the year, when the short, barren fronds which form the outer circle bend downward, forming a sort of rosette, in the centre of which the fertile fronds somewhat erectly stand."

The sterile fronds remain fairly green till spring.

56. NORTHERN WOODSIA. ALPINE WOODSIA

Woodsia hyperborea (W. alpina)

This rare little fern has been found by Dr. Peck in the Adirondacks and by Horace Mann, jr., and Mr. Pringle in Vermont. In his delightful "Reminiscences of Botanical Rambles in Vermont," published in the Torrey Bulletin, July, 1897, Mr. Pringle describes his first discovery of this species:

Later in the year Mr. Pringle made a visit to Smugglers' Notch on Mount Mansfield, when he was "prepared to camp in the old Notch House among hedgehogs, and botanize the region day by day." This visit was rich in its results. The most notable finds were Aspidium fragrans, Asplenium viride, Woodsia glabella, and Woodsia hyperborea.

57. SMOOTH WOODSIA

Woodsia glabella

The Smooth Woodsia closely resembles the Northern Woodsia, and one may expect to find it in much the same parts of the country. In texture it is still more delicate; its fronds are almost perfectly smooth, its outline is narrower, and its pinnæ are but slightly lobed.

In the following passage Mr. Pringle describes his pleasure, some years later, in the companionships fostered by a common interest in his pet hobby:

The above quotations illustrate fairly the enthusiasm aroused by a pursuit which is full of peculiar fascination. Almost anyone who has made a study of our native ferns will recall hours filled with delight through their agency, companions made more companionable by means of a common interest in their names, haunts, and habits.

INDEX TO LATIN NAMES

• Adiantum Capillus-Veneris, 108
• Adiantum emarginatum, 110
• Adiantum pedatum, 108
• Adiantum tenerum, 110
• Aspidium acrostichoides, 96
• Aspidium aculeatum, 182
• Aspidium aculeatum var. Braunii, 182
• Aspidium Boottii, 168
• Aspidium Braunii, 182
• Aspidium cristatum, 170
• Aspidium cristatum, var. Clintonianum, 172
• Aspidium fragrans, 178
• Aspidium Goldianum, 174
• Aspidium marginale, 176
• Aspidium Noveboracense, 159
• Aspidium spinulosum, 166
• Aspidium spinulosum, var. dilatatum, 168
• Aspidium spinulosum, var. intermedium, 166
• Aspidium Thelypteris, 160
• Asplenium acrostichoides, 124
• Asplenium angustifolium, 98
• Asplenium Bradleyi, 144
• Asplenium ebeneum, 134
• Asplenium ebenoides, 140
• Asplenium Felix-fœmina, 120
• Asplenium montanum, 130
• Asplenium pinnatifidum, 142
• Asplenium platyneuron, 134
• Asplenium Ruta-muraria, 126
• Asplenium thelypteroides, 124
• Asplenium Trichomanes, 136
• Asplenium viride, 138
• Botrychium dissectum, 81
• Botrychium gracile, 80
• Botrychium lanceolatum, 86
• Botrychium Lunaria, 84
• Botrychium matricariæfolium, 86
• Botrychium simplex, 81
• Botrychium ternatum, 81
• Botrychium Virginianum, 80
• Camptosorus rhizophyllus, 146
• Cheilanthes lanosa, 112
• Cheilanthes vestita, 112
• Cystopteris bulbifera, 194
• Cystopteris fragilis, 198
• Dicksonia pilosiuscula, 114
• Dicksonia punctilobula, 114
• Dryopteris acrostichoides, 96
• Dryopteris aculeata, 182
• Dryopteris Boottii, 168
• Dryopteris Braunii, 182
• Dryopteris cristata, 170
• Dryopteris cristata Clintoniana, 172
• Dryopteris fragrans, 178
• Dryopteris Goldieana, 174
• Dryopteris marginalis, 176
• Dryopteris Noveboracensis, 159
• Dryopteris simulata, 164
• Dryopteris spinulosa, 166
• Dryopteris spinulosa dilatata, 168
• Dryopteris spinulosa intermedia, 166
• Dryopteris Thelypteris, 160
• Lygodium palmatum, 75
• Onoclea sensibilis, 54
• Onoclea sensibilis, var. obtusilobata, 56
• Onoclea Struthiopteris, 56
• Ophioglossum vulgatum, 77
• Osmunda cinnamomea, 60
• Osmunda cinnamomea, var. frondosa, 62
• Osmunda Claytoniana, 72
• Osmunda regalis, 67
• Pellæa atropurpurea, 90
• Pellæa gracilis, 87
• Pellæa Stelleri, 87
• Phegopteris Dryopteris, 190
• Phegopteris hexagonoptera, 188
• Phegopteris Phegopteris, 187
• Phegopteris polypodioides, 187
• Polypodium vulgare, 184
• Pteris aquilina, 105
• Pteris esculenta, 107
• Schizæa pusilla, 63
• Scolopendrium scolopendrium, 150
• Scolopendrium vulgare, 150
• Woodsia Alpina, 203
• Woodsia glabella, 206
• Woodsia hyperborea, 203
• Woodsia Ilvensis, 200
• Woodsia obtusa, 202
• Woodwardia angustifolia, 102
• Woodwardia Virginica, 156

INDEX TO ENGLISH NAMES

• Adder's Tongue, 77
• Alpine Woodsia, 203
• Beech Fern, Broad, 188
• Beech Fern, Long, 187
• Bladder Fern, Bulblet, 194
• Bladder Fern, Common, 198
• Bladder Fern, Fragile, 198
• Blunt-lobed Woodsia, 202
• Boott's Shield Fern, 168
• Bracken, 105
• Bradley's Spleenwort, 144
• Brake, 105
• Braun's Holly Fern, 182
• Caterpillar Fern, 156
• Chain Fern, Net-veined, 102
• Chain Fern, Virginia, 156
• Christmas Fern, 96
• Cinnamon Fern, 60
• Cliff Brake, Purple, 90
• Cliff Brake, Slender, 87
• Clinton's Wood Fern, 172
• Climbing Fern, 75
• Common Polypody, 184
• Creeping Fern, 75
• Crested Shield Fern, 170
• Curly Grass, 63
• Eagle Fern, 105
• Ebony Spleenwort, 134
• Evergreen Wood Fern, 67
• Flowering Fern, 67
• Fragile Bladder Fern, 198
• Fragrant Shield Fern, 178
• Goldie's Fern, 174
• Grape Fern, Lance-leaved, 86
• Grape Fern, Little, 82
• Grape Fern, Matricary, 86
• Grape Fern, Ternate, 81
• Grape Fern, Virginia, 80
• Green Spleenwort, 138
• Hairy Lip Fern, 112
• Holly Fern, Braun's, 182
• Hartford Fern, 75
• Hart's Tongue, 150
• Hay-scented Fern, 114
• Interrupted Fern, 72
• Lady Fern, 120
• Lance-leaved Grape Fern, 86
• Little Grape Fern, 82
• Lip Fern, Hairy, 112
• Long Beech Fern, 187
• Maidenhair, 108
• Maidenhair Spleenwort, 136
• Marginal Shield Fern, 176
• Marsh Fern, 160
• Massachusetts Fern, 164
• Matricary Grape Fern, 86
• Moonwort, 84
• Mountain Spleenwort, 130
• Narrow-leaved Spleenwort, 98
• Net-veined Chain Fern, 102
• New York Fern, 159
• Northern Woodsia, 203
• Oak Fern, 190
• Ostrich Fern, 56
• Pinnatifid Spleenwort, 142
• Polypody, Common, 184
• Prickly Shield Fern, 182
• Purple Cliff Brake, 90
• Rattlesnake Fern, 80
• Royal Fern, 67
• Rue Spleenwort, 126
• Rusty Woodsia, 200
• Scott's Spleenwort, 140
• Shield Fern, Boott's, 168
• Shield Fern, Crested, 170
• Shield Fern, Fragrant, 178
• Shield Fern, Marginal, 176
• Shield Fern, Prickly, 182
• Seaweed Fern, 156
• Sensitive Fern, 54
• Silvery Spleenwort, 124
• Slender Cliff Brake, 87
• Smooth Woodsia, 206
• Snake Fern, 184
• Spinulose Wood Fern, 166
• Spleenwort, Bradley's, 144
• Spleenwort, Ebony, 134
• Spleenwort, Green, 138
• Spleenwort, Maidenhair, 136
• Spleenwort, Mountain, 130
• Spleenwort, Narrow-leaved, 98
• Spleenwort, Pinnatifid, 142
• Spleenwort, Rue, 126
• Spleenwort, Silvery, 124
• Spleenwort, Scotts', 140
• Ternate Grape Fern, 81
• Virginia Chain Fern, 156
• Virginia Grape Fern, 80
• Walking Fern, 146
• Walking Leaf, 146
• Wall Rue, 126
• Wood Fern, Clinton's, 172
• Wood Fern, Evergreen, 176
• Wood Fern, Spinulose, 166
• Woodsia, Alpine, 203
• Woodsia, Blunt-lobed, 202
• Woodsia, Northern, 203
• Woodsia, Rusty, 200
• Woodsia, Smooth, 206