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Title: Beautiful Ferns
Author: Eaton, Daniel Cady
Language: English
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BEAUTIFUL FERNS.
FROM
By C. E. FAXON and J. H. EMERTON.
Descriptive Text by Daniel Cady Eaton,
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN YALE COLLEGE.
BOSTON:
ESTES AND LAURIAT.
1886.
_Copyright, 1885_,
By H. B. Nims and Company.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
American Maiden-Hair
Ostrich-Fern
Alpine Beech-Fern
Fragrant Wood-Fern
Goldie’s Wood-Fern
Webby Lip-Fern
Eaton’s Lip-Fern
Male Fern
Trifoliate Cliff-Brake
Clayton’s Cliff-Brake
Slender Cliff-Brake
Evergreen Wood-Fern
Walking-Leaf
Pinnatifid Spleenwort
Sensitive Fern
AMERICAN MAIDEN-HAIR.
[Illustration: ]
ADIANTUM PEDATUM, Linnæus.
American Maiden-hair.
Adiantum pedatum:—Root-stock creeping, scaly, and copiously rooting;
stalks scattered, a foot or more high, dark-brown and polished, forked at
the top; fronds six to fifteen inches broad, membranaceous, smooth,
spreading nearly horizontally, composed of several (six to fourteen)
slender divisions radiating from the outer side of the recurved branches
of the stalk, and bearing numerous oblong or triangular-oblong
short-stalked pinnules having the lower margin entire and often slightly
concave, the base parallel with the polished hairlike rachis, the upper
margin lobed or cleft and bearing a few oblong-lunate or transversely
linear reflexed involucres; sporangia on the inner surface of the
involucres (as in all _Adianta_), borne on the extended apices of the
free forking veinlets, which proceed from a principal vein closely
parallel to the lower margin of the pinnule.
_Adiantum pedatum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1557.—Thunberg, Flora Japonica,
p. 339.—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 121.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 107, t.
115.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 438.—Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am., ii., p.
263.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 670.—Torrey, Fl. of N. Y., ii.,
p. 487.—Gray, Manual.—Ruprecht, Distrib. Crypt. Vasc., in Imp.
Ross., p. 49.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 28.—Brackenridge, Filices
of the U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 100.—Eaton, in Parry’s Exped. to
Japan, ii., p. 329.—Maximowicz, Primitiæ Fl. Amurensis, p.
341.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 47; Prolusio Fl. Japon. in
Ann. Mus. Bot. Lugd.-Batav., iii., p. 171.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 125.—Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 31.—Keyserling, Gen.
Adiantum, in Mem. Acad. Petrop., ser. vii., xxii., No. 2, pp. 5,
28.
_Adiantum Americanum_, Cornutus, Canad. Pl. Hist., p. 7, t. 6 (1635).
_Maiden Hair, or Cappellus veneris verus_, Josselyn, New Englands
Rarities Discovered, p. 55 (1672).
_Adiantum fronde supra-decomposita bipartita_, _foliis partialibus
alternis_, _foliolis trapeziformibus obtusis_, Gronovius, Flora
Virginica (1739), p. 123. (For other ancient references see
Linnæus, as quoted above.)
_Adiantum boreale_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 158.
Hab.—In rich, moist woods, especially among rocks. Common from New
Brunswick and Canada southward to Central Alabama, Professor Eugene A.
Smith, and westward to Lake Superior, Wisconsin, and Arkansas. Also in
Utah, California, Oregon, British Columbia, the islands of Alaska,
Kamtschatka, Japan, Mantchooria, and the Himalayan provinces of India.
Ruprecht speaks of specimens from Newfoundland, and Professor Gray
informs me that it exists in De La Pylaie’s collection from that
island.
Description.—The root-stock is elongated and creeping. It is about the
diameter of a goose-quill, is covered with minute ovate scales, roots
copiously from beneath and along the sides, and produces fronds from the
right and left sides alternately. The stalks are usually from a foot to
fifteen inches high, and from half a line to a line in thickness. When
very young, they bear a few scattered narrow scales; but these soon fall
off, leaving minute pointed scars. The mature stalk is roundish in
section, the convexity being greatest on the side which corresponds to
the under surface of the frond. The two convexities, anterior and
posterior, are separated by two obscure angles or ridges, which extend
the whole length of the stalk. The anterior, or flatter, convex surface
is nearly black, while the other side is a dark purplish brown. The
fibro-vascular bundle is U-shaped near the base of the stalk; but higher
up it is more like a broad, open V; and just below the forking of the
stalk it separates into two portions. The two branches of the stalk
diverge at an angle of about fifty degrees, and rise obliquely,
gracefully recurving till they nearly meet again. From the outer side of
the curve each branch sends out from two to seven slender diverging
branchlets, which are the rachises of the pinnæ. The branchlets nearest
the forking of the stalk are from four to fifteen inches long, those more
remote successively shorter. Thus the whole frond is from five or six to
fifteen or eighteen inches broad, and, while somewhat funnel-form in the
centre, radiates nearly horizontally towards the circumference. A pressed
specimen can give but little idea of its graceful position.
The pinnules, or leaflets, are from six to twelve lines long, and three
or four broad, and are placed alternately on the rachises of the pinnæ.
They are very numerous, seldom fewer than twelve on each side of one of
the middle (or lower) rachises, and in large fronds sometimes as many as
forty on each side. The outer rachises bear fewer and fewer pinnules, and
the outermost of even a very large frond will not have more than eight or
ten on each side. They are attached to the rachis by a very short and
slender stalk. Their usual form is dimidiate-oblong; that is, they appear
as if cut in two longitudinally, and the lower half removed, so that the
lower edge is entire, and straight, or often slightly hollowed; the base,
or edge nearest the rachis, is also straight and entire; it is parallel
with the rachis, or even overlaps it a little; the upper edge is more or
less lobed or incised, but in general nearly parallel with the lower, and
the end is rounded and slightly lobed. The point of attachment is, of
course, at the angle between the lower and basal edges. The terminal
pinnule of each pinna, and the basal one, which, indeed, very often
proceeds from one of the recurved branches _just below_ the origin of the
pinna, are broadly cuneate or transversely oblong in shape, the two sides
which meet at the point of attachment being equal; and the few pinnules
near the basal one are shorter and more triangular than the middle ones.
The texture is delicately membranaceous, but elastic; the color is a
lively green, and both surfaces are very smooth. The upper surface
appears to be destitute of stomata; and this may be the reason why water
will not adhere to the pinnules, but either falls off, or stands in
spheroids ready to fall. The veins are free: in the symmetrical basal and
apical pinnules the veinlets fork repeatedly from the very base; but in
the oblong middle pinnules there is a faint principal vein running close
to the lower edge; and from this the veinlets diverge obliquely, and fork
about three times before reaching the superior margin. The incisions of
the superior margin are usually very narrow, and extend only to about
one-third of the breadth of the pinnule; but in some specimens from
California and Oregon they are wider and considerably deeper. The lobes
are from four to six or seven in number: in sterile fronds they are
minutely toothed at the end; but in the commoner fertile fronds they are
reflexed and changed in character, so as to form somewhat crescent-shaped
or transversely elongated involucres of a pale-brownish color. The tips
of the veinlets extend into these involucres, and bear the sporangia on
the under or inner surface. In this peculiarity is the essential generic
character of _Adiantum_. The spores of this species are
spheroid-tetrahedral, the three radiating angles marked with slender
vittæ, or bands. They are mature in the latter part of summer; but the
fronds remain until frost, often changing from green to variegated shades
of brown.
There do not seem to be any well-marked variations in this fern. Ruprecht
has a “var. _Aleuticum_,” the _Ad. boreale_ of Presl, separated mainly on
account of its smaller size and fewer parts.
The genus _Adiantum_ contains eighty-three species, according to Mr.
Baker’s estimate; but this number is reduced to sixty-seven by the more
recent and very careful recension of Keyserling. The species vary in form
from a simple and reniform frond an inch or two in diameter to others
with ample tripinnate and even quadripinnate fronds. The species with
distinctly bipartite and radiated fronds are _Ad. patens_, _hispidulum_,
and _fiabellulatum_. _A. patens_ is found in Mexico and Central America.
It is a smaller plant than _A. pedatum_, and has deeply-sunken reniform
involucres. The other two occur in South-eastern Asia, the _hispidulum_
extending to Africa and to New Zealand, and the _flabellulatum_ to Japan:
the former has hispid surfaces and small roundish involucres; and the
latter has rusty-fibrillose rachises, coriaceous pinnules, and
transversely oblong sub-confluent involucres. _Ad. patens_ follows the
form and branching of our fern very closely; but the two Old-World
species often depart from it, and show a tendency to develop branches on
one or other of the longest pinnæ, thus indicating an approach towards a
pyramidal structure of the frond.
The remaining _Adianta_ of the United States are _Ad. Capillus-Veneris_
(Linnæus), found from North Carolina to California; _Ad. emarginatum_
(Hooker), which is the _Ad. Chilense_ of American botanists, but not of
Kaulfuss, found in California and Oregon; and _Ad. tricholepis_ (Fée),
which occurs in Texas and California, and extends southwards to Central
America.
The American Maiden-hair is easily cultivated, and will grow very freely
either in a shaded corner of a garden or in the house, and is perhaps
more elegant and graceful than any other of our ferns, the climbing-fern
scarcely excepted. Josselyn evidently mistook it for the Venus-hair, one
of the chief ingredients in a syrup which was formerly a famous remedy
for nearly all ailments, and said, “The Apothecaries for shame now will
substitute _Wall-Rue_ no more for Maiden Hair, since it grows in
abundance in _New-England_, from whence they may have good store.”
Mr. Emerton’s figure is taken from a living plant, and shows the frond
as it appears before it has been flattened in a collector’s portfolio.
OSTRICH-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
ONOCLEA STRUTHIOPTERIS, Hoffmann.
Ostrich-Fern.
Onoclea Struthiopteris:—Caudex short, thick, erect, emitting slender
subterranean stolons; stalks stout, a few inches to a foot long, chaffy
at the base; fronds standing in a vase-like crown, dimorphous; sterile
ones one to ten feet high, herbaceo-membranaceous, broadly lanceolate,
narrowed from the middle to the base, abruptly short-acuminate, pinnate;
pinnæ very many, sessile, the lowest ones sinuate and deflexed, the rest
three to eight inches long, five to nine lines wide, linear-lanceolate,
acuminate, deeply pinnatifid into numerous close-placed oblong obtuse
entire segments provided with a midvein and several simple veinlets on
each side; fertile fronds in the middle of the crown or vase, much
shorter than the sterile, rigid, contracted, narrowed at the base,
pinnate; pinnæ one to two inches long, crowded, obliquely ascending,
linear, obtuse, sub-entire or pinnately lobed, the lobes one or two lines
long and broad, the margins much recurved, and the whole pinna forming a
somewhat articulated pod-like body; veinlets of the fertile segments few,
soriferous on the back; receptacle elevated; indusium very delicate,
lacerate-toothed, half surrounding the sorus; sporangia at length
confluent and filling the fertile pinnæ.
_Onoclea Struthiopteris_, Hoffmann, “Deutschlands Flora, p. 11
(1795).”—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 111.—Weber & Mohr, Taschenbuch, p.
47, t. iv., f. 3, 4.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 97, t.
105.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 97, t. xvii., f. 11-15.—Milde,
Fil. Eur. et Atlant., p. 154.
_Onoclea nodulosa_, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 97, t. 104 (Perhaps also of
Michaux, but this is still uncertain).
_Onoclea Germanica_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 161.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 46.
_Osmunda Struthiopteris_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1522.
_Struthiopteris Germanica_, Willdenow, “Enum, p. 1071;” Sp. Pl., v., p.
288.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 38.—Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p.
262.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 486.—Gray, Manual, ed. i., p.
623, etc.—Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ. et Helv., ed. iii., p.
739.—Williamson, Fern-Etchings, t. 44.
_Struthiopteris Pennsylvanica_, Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 289.—Pursh,
Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 266.—Torrey, Compendium, p. 385.—Bigelow,
Fl. Boston., ed. iii., p. 421.
_Struthiopteris_, the genus only, Willdenow, in Berl. Mag., 1809, p. 160.
Hab.—Low grounds, especially in fine alluvial soil subject to the
overflow of rivers; from the Saskatchewan and Lake Winnipeg to New
Brunswick, and southward to Pennsylvania and Illinois. Mentioned by
Alexander Braun as coming from Arkansas. From Lapland to Sicily, and
eastward to the Amoor region, Sachalin and Kamtschatka. Not known in
the western parts of either Europe or America.
Description:—The ostrich-fern is one of our finest ferns, being surpassed
in grandeur only by _Acrostichum aureum_, _Woodwardia radicans_, and
perhaps _Osmunda regalis_. The plant is propagated chiefly by long and
slender stolons, bearing appressed rudimentary stalk-bases. These stolons
are said by Sachs to originate from buds formed on the stalks near the
base: they run underground for several inches or a foot, and at the end
rise to the surface and there thicken into a short erect caudex, covered
by imbricating stalk-bases, and throwing up from the apex a grand
vase-like circle of foliage, which is often higher than a man’s head, and
sometimes extends above his utmost reach.
The stalks are seldom over a foot long: they are flattened, blackish, and
chaffy at the base, but above ground they are green, drying dull-brown,
somewhat four-sided, and deeply channelled in front, when dried furrowed
on the sides also. They contain two flattened fibro-vascular bundles. The
stalks of the sterile fronds are rather longer than the others, but more
rigid, and remain erect till the second year.
The sterile fronds are oblong-lanceolate in outline, gradually narrowed
to the base from near the middle and abruptly short acuminate. The pinnæ
are usually of nearly equal breadth from the base to beyond the middle.
They are pinnatifid to within a line of the midrib into numerous oblong
and obtuse segments, the veins of which are free, simple and pinnately
arranged on a midvein.
The fertile fronds are produced late in the summer, and are contracted,
much shorter than the others, and very rigid. The pinnæ are sometimes
nearly entire, and in other examples pinnately lobed. The margins are
very much recurved, so that the pinnæ are pod-like, and either
sub-cylindrical or somewhat moniliform. The venation is free, and the
sori are dorsal on the veins. Mr. Faxon writes: “The indusium can be
detected only when the fertile frond is very young, and appears as a very
delicate, lacerate membrane, attached at the base of the receptacle, and
serving to separate the sorus from its neighbors. I have not found it in
any case hood-like as in _O. sensibilis_. The sori are quickly confluent,
and all trace of the indusium is soon lost. The membranaceous edge of the
transformed fertile pinna is attached near the bases of the inferior sori
and a fold is usually found pressed against the sori as seen in the
drawing (Fig. 3). This is usually ruptured, so as to leave a portion
attached at the base of the sorus, and must not be mistaken for the true
indusium, which is within.”
The sporangia have twenty-six or twenty-eight articulations of the ring.
The spores are dark-colored and ovoid.
Imperfectly fertile fronds are often found, which are analogous to the
“_obtusilobata_” condition of _O. sensibilis_.
ALPINE BEECH-FERN.
FRAGRANT WOOD-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
PHEGOPTERIS ALPESTRIS, Mettenius.
Alpine Beech-Fern.
Phegopteris alpestris:—Root-stock short and thick, erect or oblique;
stalks sub-terminal, four to ten inches long, bearing a few brown
spreading scales near the base; fronds one to two feet long,
oblong-lanceolate, membranaceous, smooth, pinnate with delicately
bi-pinnatifid deltoid-lanceolate pinnæ, the lower ones distant, and
decreasing moderately; pinnules ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, doubly
incised and toothed; sori small, rounded, naked, usually copious on all
or all but the lowest pinnæ.
_Phegopteris alpestris_, Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 83; Phegopteris,
p. 10.
_Polypodium alpestre_, Hoppe, “in Spreng. Syst. Veg., iv., par. ii., p.
320.”—Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., “ed. 2, p. 974;” ed. 3, p. 731.—Moore,
Nat. Pr. Brit. Ferns, t. vii.—Hooker & Arnott, Brit. Fl., ed. 7, p.
582.—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. vi.; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 251.—Hooker &
Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 311.
_Aspidium alpestre_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 421.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.
58, t. 60.
_Asplenium alpestre_, Mettenius, Asplenium, p. 198, t. vi., figs. 1-6.
_Pseudathyrium alpestre_, Newman, “Phytologist, iv., p. 370;” Hist. Brit.
Ferns, ed. iii., p. 200.
_Athyrium alpestre_, “Nylander;” Milde, Fil. Eu. & Atl., p. 53.
_Polypodium rhæticum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552, _fide_ Schkuhr, l. c.;
but Moore thinks the plant not the same.
_Aspidium rhæticum_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 59.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p.
280.
Hab.—Among rocks at high elevations; on Lassen’s Peak, Mount Shasta,
Pyramid Peak, Mount Rose, and other high points in the Sierra of
California, Brewer, Lemmon, Muir; Cascade Mountains of British
Columbia, Lyall. In the Alps and the mountains of Northern Europe; also
in the Caucasus, and in Asia Minor.
Description.—The root-stock is rather short, but branching, and seems to
form great entangled masses. The fronds stand in a crown or circle,
rising from the end of the root-stock, which is made thick and heavy with
the chaffy bases of former stalks. Mr. Lemmon writes thus: “It grows in a
limited locality, so far as I know, near the summit of Mount Rose, near
Webber Lake, and say at an elevation of 7,000 feet; lat. 39½° N. Fronds
collected into a large mass four feet across, short at the circumference,
in the centre three feet high; most of them fertile, and densely so, as
in the specimen sent.”
The stalks are usually but a few (four to six) inches long, and in the
dried specimens of a brownish straw-color, becoming nearly black at the
base. They bear a few large ferruginous chaffy scales, and are deeply
channelled and furrowed. The fibro-vascular system of the stalk is
altered by contraction in drying, but apparently agrees with Dr. Milde’s
description of _Athyrium_: “There are two oblong peripheric bundles in
the _base_ of the stalk, which, at the base of the lamina, are united
into one of a horse-shoe shape by an arc parallel to the back of the
stalk.” In the middle of a stalk from one of the California specimens I
find two systems of ducts, one on each side of the stalk, and the two
united by a curved and contorted border of firm blackish tissue
(sclerenchyma).
The fronds are from one to two feet long, and from three to six inches
wide. In general shape they are oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, and
slightly narrowed at the base. The texture is softly membranaceous, and
both surfaces are smooth. The primary pinnæ are numerous, the lower ones
gradually farther apart: their shape is lanceolate from a broad base.
They are usually twice pinnatifid, the pinnules being connected by a very
narrow foliaceous border along the midribs. The ultimate segments are
sharply toothed. The fruit-dots are very abundant, and usually are found
on all the pinnæ. They are placed on the back of the free veinlets, and
are apparently devoid of indusium; though Dr. Mettenius has discovered on
young fronds an exceedingly delicate and fugitive indusium, resembling in
some degree that of _Asplenium § Athyrium_. Accordingly, in his later
work, he referred the species to the genus _Asplenium_, placing it next
to _A. Filix-fœmina_. Milde, in his work on the ferns of Europe and
Atlantis, sought to re-establish Athyrium as a genus, and placed this
fern in it, saying “sori ... rotundi, primum breviter oblongi indusio
fugaci minutissimo ciliato instructi.” The spores are ovoid, and
apparently covered with anastomosing raised lines. Those I have examined
are fuscous-brown, but Milde says “sub-nigræ verrucosæ.”
There is a European var. _flexilis_, with very narrow, nearly sessile
fronds, and the pinnæ often deflexed, which has not been observed in
America.
Undoubtedly the greatest resemblance of this fern is to the lady-fern,
_Asplenium Filix-fœmina_; but that species has a very well-developed
indusium, while the minute objects delineated by Mettenius scarcely
deserve the name.
The stalks are clearly continuous with the root-stock; and for this
reason the plant is plainly not a _Polypodium_, whatever else it may
finally be determined to be.
ASPIDIUM FRAGRANS, Swartz.
Fragrant Wood-Fern.
Aspidium fragrans:—Root-stock short and stout, very chaffy, with ample
bright-brown glossy scales, which also abound on the short clustered
stalks, and extend, diminishing in size, nearly to the top of the frond;
fronds rigid-membranaceous, glandular, aromatic, four to ten inches long,
six to twenty-four lines wide, lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed from the
middle to the base, bipinnate; pinnæ numerous, oblong-lanceolate;
pinnules many, one to two lines long, oblong, obtuse, adnate by a
decurrent base, pinnately incised with very minute crenated teeth, or in
smaller fronds nearly entire, the back nearly hidden by the large thin
imbricating indusia, which are orbicular with a narrow sinus, and more or
less toothed and glandular around the margin.
_Aspidium fragrans_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 51.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p.
253.—Hooker, in “Parry’s 2d Voy., App., p. 410;” Fl. Bor. Am., p.
410.—Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. Imp. Ross., p. 35.—Mettenius,
Aspid., p. 56.—Gray, Manual, ed. 2, p. 598.—Milde, Fil. Eur. et
Atlant., p. 117.
_Polypodium fragrans_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1550.
_Polystichum fragrans_, Ledebour, “Fl. Ross., iv., p. 514.”—Maximowicz,
Prim. Fl. Amur., p. 339.
_Dryopteris fragrans_, Schott, Gen. Fil., Observ. sub Polysticho.
_Nephrodium fragrans_, Richardson, “App. to Frankl. Journ., p.
753.”—Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil., t. lxx.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv.,
p. 122.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 275.
_Dryopteris rubum idæum spirans_, Ammann, “Ruth., p. 251.”
Hab.—In crevices of shaded cliffs, and on mossy rocks, especially near
cascades and rivulets, from Northern New England to Wisconsin, and
northward to Arctic America. Also in the Caucasus, and in Siberia,
Mantchooria, and Kamtschatka. Special American localities are Mount
Kineo, Maine, A. H. and C. E. Smith; at Berlin Falls, the “Alpine
Cascade,” and the “Gulch,” all near the White Mountains, H. Willey;
Mount Mansfield, Vermont, C. G. Pringle; Lake Avalanche, Adirondack
Mountains, New York, C. H. Peck; Falls of St. Croix, Wisconsin, C. C.
Parry, and on the Penokee Iron Range, in the same State, Lapham;
Saguenay River, Canada, D. A. Watt. It is apparently more common
farther north: Sitka, Iliuliuk, Unalaska, Arakamtchetchene, Kotzebue
Bay, Igloolik, Rittenbenk in Greenland, and several other places, are
recorded as stations for it.
Description.—The root-stock is rather stout, ascending or erect; and its
apparent thickness is much increased by the persistent bases of stalks,
which also give it a dense covering of broad bright-brown chaffy scales.
The fronds, frequently to the number of six or eight, besides old and
shrivelled ones, stand in a crown at the upper end of the root-stocks,
resting on stalks from one to four inches long, which are usually very
chaffy, the chaff continued along the rachis and midribs, though composed
of smaller scales than those lower down. The fronds are from three or
four to ten inches in length; and the greatest breadth, just above the
middle, is from one-fifth to one-sixth of the length. The outline is
exactly lanceolate, as the apex is acute, and the lower part gradually
tapering to a somewhat narrowed base. The fronds are delicately, but
densely, bipinnate. In a frond nine inches long there are about thirty
primary pinnæ on each side, and in one of the middle pinnæ about ten
oblong-ovate obtuse pinnately-incised pinnules on each side. The pinnules
are from a line to two lines long, and are adnate to the secondary rachis
by a more or less decurrent base. In large fronds the teeth of the
pinnules are again crenately toothed; but in small specimens the pinnules
themselves are entire, or but slightly toothed. Two sterile fronds
collected by Professor M. W. Harrington, in Iliuliuk, Alaska, are broadly
ovate-lanceolate in outline, and have acute primary pinnæ; and other
specimens, some from Eastern Canada, collected by Mr. Watt, and some from
Northern Wisconsin, collected by Mr. Lapham, are much slenderer and less
scaly than usual. This is the var. β of Hooker. Usually the fronds are
rather rigid, full-green above, a little paler beneath, and both
surfaces, together with the rachis, especially the canal along the upper
side of the rachis, are dotted with very minute pellucid pale
amber-colored glands. The fronds commonly fruit very fully, even the
lowest pinna bearing sporangia. The indusia are very large, thin,
orbicular, with a narrow sinus, more or less ragged or toothed and
gland-bearing at the margin, and are so dense as to overlap each other,
and nearly conceal the back of the pinnules. The spores are ovoid, and
have a minutely verrucose or warty surface.
The pleasant odor of the plant remains many years in the herbarium. The
early writers compare the fragrance to that of raspberries, and Milde
repeats the observation. Hooker and Greville thought it “not unlike that
of the common primrose.” Maximowicz states that the odor is sometimes
lacking. Milde quotes Redowsky as saying that the Yakoots of Siberia use
the plant in place of tea; and, having tried the experiment myself, I can
testify to the not unpleasant and very fragrant astringency of the
infusion.
The illustration is taken from a plant collected by Mr. D. A. Watt on
the Saguenay River, in Canada.
GOLDIE’S WOOD-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
ASPIDIUM GOLDIANUM, Hooker.
Goldie’s Wood-Fern.
Aspidium Goldianum:—Root-stock stout, ascending, chaffy; stalks about a
foot long, chaffy at the base with large ovate-acuminate ferruginous or
deep-lustrous-brown scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two and a
half feet long, broadly ovate, or the fertile ones oblong-ovate,
chartaceo-membranaceous, nearly smooth, bright-green above, a little
paler beneath, pinnate; pinnæ broadly lanceolate, five to eight inches
long, one to two and a half broad, usually, especially the lowest ones,
narrower at the base than in the middle, pinnatifid almost to the midrib;
segments numerous, oblong-linear, often slightly falcate, crenate, or
serrate with sharp incurved teeth; veins free, mostly with three
veinlets, the lowest superior veinlets bearing near their base the large
sori very near the midvein; indusium large, flat, smooth, orbicular with
a narrow sinus.
_Aspidium Goldianum_, Hooker, in Goldie’s Acc. of rare Canad. Pl. in
Edinb. Phil. Journ., vi., p. 333; Fl. Am.-Bor., ii., p.
260.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p.
598, ed. v., p. 666.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspid., p.
56.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 95, t. xxxiv.
_Nephrodium Goldianum_, Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil. t. cii.—Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 121.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272.
_Lastrea Goldiana_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Lawson, in Canad. Nat.
i., p. 282.
_Dryopteris Goldiana_, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 631.
_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662.
Hab.—Deep, rocky woods, from Canada and Maine to Indiana, Virginia and
Kentucky. It is also named in local catalogues of the flora of
Wisconsin and Kansas. Not known in the Old World.
Description:—The root-stock is creeping or ascending, several inches
long, and nearly an inch thick. This thickness is made up, in
considerable part, by the adherent bases of old stalks; the stalks being
perfectly continuous with the root-stock, and so much crowded as to
overlap each other. When fresh the root-stock is fleshy, and a
longitudinal section of it shows that its substance passes so gradually
into that of the stalk-bases, that no point of separation or distinction
between the two can be selected. This kind of root-stock is found also in
_Aspidium spinulosum_ and its allies, in _A. Filix-mas_, _A. cristatum_,
_A. marginale_, _A. Nevadense_, _A. fragrans_, and _A. rigidum_, and in
very many exotic species, and it is very unlike the root-stocks of _A.
Thelypteris_, _A. Noveboracense_, and _A. unitum_, species which have
been already described and figured in the present work. The
parenchymatous portion of the root-stock is loaded with starch in very
minute grains, as may be easily proved by adding a drop of alcoholic
solution of iodine to a thin slice of the root-stock placed under a
microscope, when the grains will be presently seen to turn blue, the
recognized sign of starch. This abundance of nutritive material in the
root-stock enables it to send up a fine circle of large fronds in the
proper season of the year.
The stalks are from nine to fifteen inches long, rather stout, green when
living, but straw-color when dried for the herbarium, in which condition
they are furrowed in front and along the two sides. At the base they are
covered with large ovate-acuminate brown or sometimes dark and shining
scales. Mixed in with these are smaller and narrower chaffy scales, which
also are found along the whole length of the stalk and the rachis. The
cross-section of the stalk shows two rather large roundish fibro-vascular
bundles on the anterior side, and three, the middle one largest, at the
back.
Several fronds are usually seen growing from a root-stock, those produced
early in the season commonly sterile, and shorter than the others. The
full-grown and fertile fronds are often two feet or two and a half feet
long, and about one foot broad. The general outline is oblong-ovate, the
lowest pinnæ being scarcely, if at all, shorter than those in the middle
of the frond. There are usually about eight or ten full-sized pinnæ each
side of the rachis, besides the gradually diminishing pinnæ near the
acute pinnatifid apex. The larger pinnæ are from five to eight inches
long, the middle ones an inch or an inch and a half wide, but the lowest
ones two inches and a half broad. The greatest breadth of the pinnæ is
usually near the middle or even a little above the middle, so that they
are slightly narrowed towards the base; and in this character lies one of
the readiest distinctions between this fern and those large forms of _A.
cristatum_, which have occasionally been mistaken for _A. Goldianum_; for
in that other species the greatest breadth of the pinnæ is uniformly at
the base.
The segments of the pinnæ are from fifteen to twenty each side the
midrib: the incisions do not extend quite to the midrib, so that the
latter is narrowly winged, and the pinnæ are pinnatifid rather than
pinnate. The segments are from nine to eighteen lines long, and about
three lines wide: they are set rather obliquely on the midrib, and are
often slightly curved upwards, or falcate. They are obtuse or somewhat
acute, and have the edges crenate, or more or less distinctly serrate
with sharp incurved teeth.
The veins are free, and are pinnately forked into from three to five
slender oblique veinlets, of which the lowest one on the upper side is
the longest, and bears a fruit-dot near its base. The fruit-dots are
seldom or never found on the two or three lowest pinnæ, but on the rest
they are arranged in a row each side the midveins of the segments, and
much nearer the midveins than the margins. There are in all from ten to
twenty to a segment.
The indusia are larger than in most of the related species, flat,
perfectly smooth, orbicular with a very narrow sinus, and slightly
erose-crenulate on the margin. In the second edition of Gray’s Manual it
is said that the indusium is “often orbicular without a distinct sinus,
as in _Polystichum_;” and it is sometimes difficult to see the sinus, but
I think it is rather because the sides of it overlap than because there
is none. The sporangia have a ring of from fifteen to twenty
articulations. The spores are ovoid, and somewhat roughened on the
surface.
This fern is one of the very finest and largest of the species of the
Eastern States, being surpassed in these respects only by the osmundas
and the ostrich-fern. The fronds are smooth, deep-green in color,
slightly paler beneath, and of a rather firm papery texture. Unlike _A.
Filix-mas_ and _A. cristatum_ the fronds wither in the fall of the year,
and are not “half-evergreen.”
It was collected by Pursh on his visit to America in the early part of
this century, the precise locality not known,—in the Flora he says “New
Jersey to Virginia,”—and was by him referred to _A. Filix-mas_. His
specimens, preserved in the herbarium at Kew, are partly _A. Goldianum_
and partly _A. cristatum_. Mr. John Goldie’s discovery was made near
Montreal, about the year 1818, and the excellent figure in Hooker &
Greville’s Icones Filicum was probably taken from one of his specimens,
or perhaps from live plants originally brought by him to the Botanic
Garden at Glasgow.
Though not one of our commonest Ferns, this is very abundant in certain
localities:—Mrs. Roy sends it from Owen Sound, Canada; Dr. Bumstead got
it in Smuggler’s Notch, Mt. Mansfield, Vermont; Mr. Frost has a fine
station on Mt. Wantastiquet, New Hampshire; I find it plentiful and fine
in the deep ravine called Roaring Brook, in Cheshire, Connecticut;
Professor Porter has it from Burgoon’s Gap, in the Alleghany Mountains of
Pennsylvania; Mrs. McCall, near Madison, Ohio; Mr. Williamson “found it
in great abundance near the Little Rockcastle River, in Laurel County,”
Kentucky, and Mr. Curtis has twice sent me fine specimens, with very dark
scales at the base of the stalks, from the Peaks of Otter, Virginia.
The name is sometimes written _Goldieanum_; I give the name as it occurs
in Goldie’s original paper in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.
The specimen drawn by Mr. Faxon is from Vermont, and is represented
about two-thirds of the natural size.
WEBBY LIP-FERN.
EATON’S LIP-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
CHEILANTHES TOMENTOSA, Link.
Webby Lip-Fern.
Cheilanthes tomentosa:—Root-stock short, chaffy with glossy subulate
scales; stalks tufted, four to eight inches long, erect, rather stout,
clothed with soft woolly pale-ferruginous hairs, intermixed with others
which are flattened and decidedly paleaceous; fronds eight to fifteen
inches long, oblong-lanceolate, webby-tomentose with slender
brownish-white obscurely articulated hairs, especially beneath,
tripinnate; primary and secondary pinnæ oblong or ovate-oblong; ultimate
pinnules closely placed, but distinct, roundish-obovate, sessile, or
adnate to the tertiary rachis, one-half to three-fourths of a line long,
the terminal ones twice longer; involucres whitish, continuous round the
pinnule and very narrow.
_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Link, “Hort. Berol., ii., p. 42.”—Fil. Hort.
Berol., p. 65.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 87; in
Linnæa, xxiii., p. 245.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 592.—Mettenius,
Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 50; Cheilanthes, p. 37.—Eaton, in Chapman’s
Flora, p. 590; Ferns of the South-West, p. 314.—Baker, Syn. Fil.,
p. 140.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 49, t. xi.
_Myriopteris tomentosa_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 149, t. xii., _A._, f. 2 (a
pinnule).—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 125 (species exclusa).
_Notholæna tomentosa_, J. Smith.
_Cheilanthes Bradburii_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 97, t. cix.,
_B._—Mettenius, Cheilanthes, p. 37.
Hab.—Sandstone rocks along the French Broad River, in North Carolina
and Eastern Tennessee, Professor Gray, Mr. Canby, Rev. D. R. Shoop,
Professor Bradley, etc. Texas, Lindheimer, No. 743. Mountains of
Virginia (?) and Kentucky, according to Gray’s Manual, but Mr.
Williamson has hitherto failed to find it in the last named State. The
Kew herbarium contains, besides Lindheimer’s plant, a very imperfect
specimen marked “Manitou Rocks, 250 miles up the Missouri, Bradbury,”
and good specimens from Texas collected by Drummond. Kunze states that
it was raised [at the Leipzig garden?] from Mexican spores, and that
Rugel collected a few specimens in North Carolina; but Fournier rejects
it as a Mexican species.
Description:—This is decidedly the largest plant among all our North
American species of Cheilanthes, some of the tallest specimens measuring
nearly two feet in total length. The root-stock is short, and disposed to
branch. It is thickly clad with fine subulate chaff, many of the scales
with a dark and rigid midnerve, and others lighter-colored and without
midnerve. The plant evidently grows in dense masses. The stalks are
clustered, each root-stock sending up a large number of them. They are
rigid, wiry, terete and covered with grayish-tawny spreading soft woolly
hairs, intermixed with a few which are broader and decidedly paleaceous,
especially towards the base. The section is round, and shows a firm
exterior sclerenchymatous sheath, within which is a broad circle of
brownish parenchyma, and in the middle a single fibro-vascular bundle
obtusely triangular in shape, but with the sides slightly hollowed in.
The fronds vary from a few inches to over a foot in length; their general
shape is ovate-lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate; they are in general of a
grayish color from the abundance of a fine entangled tomentum, which
covers both surfaces, though it is a little thinner and whiter on the
upper surface. The large fronds are fully tripinnate. The primary pinnæ
are oblong-ovate, short-stalked, one to nearly two inches long, and a
half to three-fourths of an inch broad at the base. They are either
opposite or alternate, the lower ones, as usual, more separated than
those that are higher up on the frond. The secondary pinnæ are
close-placed, oblong, obtuse, and again pinnated into from two to five
minute rounded or rounded-obovate sessile or adnate-decurrent pinnules on
each side, besides a terminal oval pinnule which is twice as large as the
lateral ones. These ultimate pinnules are innumerable, and it is in
allusion to their very great number in this and the allied species that
the generic name _Myriopteris_ was proposed by Fée for the group.
The whole margin of the pinnule is recurved, and from the edge of it is
produced a very delicate whitish involucre, the whole forming a sort of
pouch, as is admirably represented in the figure given by Fée. The
sporangia have a ring of about twenty articulations: Fée says there are
vittate or knotted hairs growing among them. The spores are rather large,
amber-colored, globose, and delicately trivittate. According to Fée, when
placed in water they burst and dissolve into excessively minute sporules.
There can be no doubt that our plant is the _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of
Link. Kunze, who knew Link’s plant perfectly well, referred the North
Carolina specimens to it; and Dr. Mettenius, who succeeded to the care of
the Leipzig garden, favored me with specimens which are precisely the
same thing as the plant here described. But none of the Mexican
collectors seem to have found the species, and it may be legitimately
queried whether the commonly reported origin of Link’s specimens is the
true one. The _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of the _Species Filicum_ is partly
this plant, but mainly the species next to be described.
CHEILANTHES EATONI, Baker.
Eaton’s Lip-Fern.
Cheilanthes Eatoni: Root-stock short, chaffy with rather long slenderly
acuminate glossy scales; stalks clustered, four to eight inches long,
erect, wiry, covered, as are the rachis and its divisions, with narrow
shining pale-ferruginous scales and paleaceous hairs intermixed; fronds
four to nine inches long, oblong-lanceolate, pubescent above with whitish
entangled woolly hairs, beneath covered with a heavy matted ferruginous
tomentum, and more or less scaly, especially when young, tripinnate;
pinnæ ovate-oblong, lower ones rather distant, upper ones crowded;
ultimate pinnules contiguous, half a line long, rounded, but narrowed at
the base, the terminal ones often twice larger and more decidedly
obovate; margin of the pinnules continuously recurved, the edge slightly
membranaceous.
_Cheilanthes Eatoni_, Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 140.—Porter & Coulter,
Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado, p. 153.—Eaton, Ferns of the
South-West, p. 315.
_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 96 (description and
Texas plant), t. cix., _A._—Eaton, in Botany of the U. S. and
Mexican Boundary Survey, p. 234.
Hab.—Texas and New Mexico, Wright, No. 816; Fendler, No. 1016; Indian
Territory, between Fort Cobb and Fort Arbuckle, Palmer; near Cañon
City, Colorado, Brandegee; from the Rio Grande westward along the Gila
to the Colorado River, Collectors of Mexican Boundary Survey. The kind
of place where this fern has been collected is not recorded, but it
probably grows in the clefts of rocks along the sides and edges of
cañons.
Description:—This fern bears so close a resemblance to _Cheilanthes
tomentosa_, that it is not at all surprising that there has been more or
less of confusion between the two. It would seem that when writing his
account of the genus _Cheilanthes_ for the Species Filicum, Sir W. J.
Hooker had, in his collection, no examples of the North Carolina _C.
tomentosa_, and could identify it only by Link’s rather imperfect
description and Kunze’s remarks in Silliman’s Journal. Having Wright’s
specimens of the plant here described, and Gordon’s fern from the Rattene
Mountains—a plant not yet satisfactorily identified—he referred them to
the species named by Link; and then perceiving with his accustomed
delicate discrimination that Lindheimer’s and Bradbury’s plant was
distinct from Wright’s, he gave the former the name of _C. Bradburii_. It
was not until 1860, when the Ferns for Chapman’s Flora were being
prepared, that any one suspected that the _C. Bradburii_ was the true _C.
tomentosa_. In 1866, I had an opportunity of explaining the matter to Mr.
Baker, then at work on the Synopsis Filicum, and not long after, I was
surprised, and I need not say pleased, by finding that he had given to
Hooker’s _C. tomentosa_ the name it now bears.
The root-stock is short, assurgent, and chaffy with rather rigid
slender-pointed scales, most of them furnished with a dark midnerve. The
stalks are tufted, and are perhaps a little slenderer than those of _C.
tomentosa_. They are chaffy throughout, but more especially at the base,
with narrow pale ferruginous scales, intermixed with still slenderer
paleaceous hairs. The section is slightly flattened on the anterior side.
The exterior sheath is firm; inside of it is brownish parenchyma, and in
the middle a semicircular fibro-vascular bundle, the ducts in the centre
of it arranged in a figure much like a letter X.
The fronds are considerably smaller than in _C. tomentosa_. They are
similarly oblong-lanceolate and tripinnate, the ultimate pinnules being
very numerous and rather more closely crowded than in the other species
just referred to. The pubescence is harsher and not so webby on the upper
side, and is decidedly heavier and more matted on the under surface. The
scales of the branches, or secondary rachises, are broader and shorter
than those of the stalk and are very conspicuous in young fronds. In
older fronds they fall away, to some extent, and are then less abundant.
The pinnules are rather rounder and less oval than in _C. tomentosa_, and
though they are somewhat purse-shaped, the involucre consists almost
entirely of the recurved herbaceous margin, the proper whitish and
delicately membranous involucre being nearly suppressed.
The spores are sub-globose, amber-colored, faintly trivittate, and have a
finely pustulated or granular surface.
In respect to the narrow herbaceous involucre this fern comes nearest to
_Cheilanthes lanuginosa_, of Nuttall, figured in “Ferns of North
America.” It has, however, much larger fronds; and the copious, though
narrow scales of the stalk, as well as the scales of the rachises, will
readily distinguish it.
It is among the Ferns which have been cultivated by Hon. J. Warren
Merrill, though I am not informed what are its special needs in the way
of soil, moisture, etc.
MALE FERN.
[Illustration: ]
ASPIDIUM FILIX-MAS, Swartz.
Male Fern.
Aspidium Filix-mas:—Root-stock short, stout, ascending or erect; stalks
rarely over a foot long, very chaffy with large lanceolate-acuminate
scales and smaller ones intermixed; fronds standing in a crown, one to
three feet long, half-evergreen, firm-membranaceous, broadly
oblong-lanceolate, slightly narrowed toward the base, pinnate or
sub-bipinnate; pinnæ lanceolate-acuminate from a broad base, pinnatifid
almost or rarely quite to the midrib; segments smooth and full-green
above, slightly paler and bearing a few little chaffy scales beneath,
normally oblong, obtuse or even truncate, slightly toothed, in another
form ovate-lanceolate, acutish and pinnately incised; veins free, forked
or pinnately branched into from two to five veinlets; sori rather large,
nearer the midvein than the margin, commonly occurring only on the lower
half or two-thirds of each segment; indusia convex when young, rather
firm, smooth or minutely glandular, orbicular-reniform.
_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Swartz, in Schraders Journal, ii., (1800) p. 38;
Syn. Fil., p. 55.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 45, t. 44.—Willdenow,
Sp. Pl., v., p. 259.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 105.—Ruprecht,
Distr. Krypt. Vasc, in Imp. Ross., p. 35.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ.,
July, 1848, p. 83.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspidium, p.
55.—Eaton, in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 666.—Milde, in Nov. Act.
Acad. Nat. Cur., xxvi., ii., p. 507; Fil. Eur. et Atl., p.
118.—Miquel, Prolusio Fl. Jap., p. 117.
_Polypodium Filix-mas_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. p. 1551.
_Polystichum Filix-mas_, Roth, “Fl. Germ., iii., p. 82.”—Koch, Syn. Fl.
Germ, et Helv., ed. iii., p. 733.
_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, Richard, “in Desvaux, Mém. Soc. Linn., vi., p.
60.”—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. 15; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 117.—Hooker &
Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272 (excl. vars. γ and δ).
_Dryopteris Filix-mas_, Schott, Gen. Fil.—Newman, Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed.
iii., p. 184.
_Lastrea Filix-mas_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Moore, Brit. Ferns,
Nat. Pr., t. xiv, xv, xvi, xvii.
Var. _incisum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, scantily
chaffy on the rachis; segments rather distant, lanceolate, tapering
to a sub-acute point, incised on the margins with serrated lobules;
indusium rather delicate, in age shrivelling or falling
off.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 120.—_Lastrea
Filix-mas_, var. _incisa_, Moore, l.c.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var.
_affine_, Hooker & Baker. l.c.
Var. _paleaceum_, Mettenius:—Frond ample, two to three feet long, stalk
and rachis very chaffy with ferruginous or blackish scales;
segments oblong, truncate, nearly entire on the margins; indusium
coriaceous, the edges much incurved, sometimes splitting in
two.—Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. Atl., p. 121.—_Lastrea
Filix-mas_, var. _paleacea_, Moore, l.c.—_Aspidium paleaceum_, Don,
“Prodr. Fl. Nepal., p. 4;” Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 92.
_Aspidium parallelogrammum_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xiii., p. 146,
etc.—_Nephrodium Filix-mas_, var. _parallelogrammum_, Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 116.—_Dichasium parallelogrammum_ and _D.
patentissimum_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 302, t. xxiii, _B._—_Lastrea
truncata_, Brackenridge, Fil. of U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 195, t. 27
(admirable).[1]
Hab.—In one form or another, this species occurs in America from
Greenland to Peru, throughout Europe and Asia, in parts of Africa, and
in many islands of the ocean. The ordinary European form corresponding
to Moore’s plate XIV has been collected in British Columbia by Dr.
Lyall, in Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern Michigan by Dr. Robbins, and
in the mountains of Colorado by Messrs. Hall & Harbour and Mr.
Brandegee. Var. _incisum_ was found at the base of calcareous rocks at
Royston Park, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, by Mrs. Roy, and in the
mountains of Colorado by Dr. Scovill, for one of whose specimens I am
indebted to D. A. Watt, Esq., of Montreal. Fragments of apparently the
same form have been received from Dakota. The Californian plant
mentioned in Plantæ Hartwegianæ, p. 342, is better regarded as a form
of _Aspidium rigidum_. Var. _paleaceum_ has not been found in either
Canada or the United States, but is well known in Mexico, in Europe, in
Southern Asia, in the Hawaiian Islands, etc.
Description:—This fern has a stout, usually ascending, but sometimes
erect, very chaffy root-stock, very much like that of the species last
described. It sometimes rises a little above the surface of the ground,
forming a short trunk.
The stalks seem to vary a good deal in length, being sometimes only two
or three inches long, and at other times over a foot. They are clustered
at the growing end of the root-stock, and their bases, which remain long
after the rest has perished, are consolidated with the root-stock. The
stalks are always more or less chaffy, the chaff mainly confined to the
lowest portion in some plants, and in others following the stalk and the
rachis to the apex of the frond. The largest scales are sometimes fully
an inch long. They are narrowly lanceolate-acuminate, distantly
ciliate-denticulate on the margin, and composed of narrow but somewhat
sinuous cells. Mixed in with them are smaller scales, from two to four
lines long, and more distinctly ciliate-toothed. The color of the scales
is different in different specimens, varying from bright golden-brown to
ferruginous-brown with a darker spot at the base, and from this to nearly
black, especially in the sub-tropical and tropical forms of var.
_paleaceum_. Such specimens are sometimes fairly shaggy with the
abundance of scales, which are also found, decreasing in number and in
size, on the midribs of the pinnæ, and even on the lower surface of the
segments. The usual number of fibro-vascular bundles is seven.
The fronds are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate in outline,
usually narrowed a little, or even conspicuously narrowed, at the base,
and acute or acuminate at the apex. They are of a full herbaceous green
above, a little paler beneath, and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or,
in tropical forms, of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is
from one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally seen;
and one very fine example of var. _paleaceum_, collected in Chiapas,
Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a half long, exclusive of
the stalk.
The pinnæ are sometimes very numerous; as many as forty on each side have
been counted on very large fronds, but the number is more commonly less
than twenty. They are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a
broad base to a slender point; in the common form their average breadth
at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in var. _incisum_
they are often fully two inches broad at the base. Their length is from
three or four inches in the common form to six or seven inches in the
largest specimens I have seen. The midrib of the pinnæ is always more or
less winged, so that the pinnæ may be said to be pinnatifid, and the
segments to be connected by a narrow wing.
The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties; in the type
they are very close together, oblong, with a rounded apex, and not very
deeply toothed: in var. _paleaceum_ they are also closely-placed, and
oblong, but mostly truncate at the apex; and in var. _incisum_ they are
much larger and less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and
incised with toothed lobes along the sides.
The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided into from two
to five veinlets. The sori are rather large, placed nearer the midvein
than the margin, and are rarely produced towards the apex of the
segments.
The indusium is orbicular-reniform, and almost always smooth. Its edges
are turned downward, enclosing the sporangia, when they are young, and
sometimes this convexity is permanent. Rarely the sinus is so deep that
the indusium at last becomes divided. The spores are ovoid, and have a
muricately roughened surface.
The rhizomes have been used for ages as an anthelmintic, but probably
have no greater virtue in this direction than those of many other common
species.
TRIFOLIATE CLIFF-BRAKE.
CLAYTON’S CLIFF-BRAKE.
SLENDER CLIFF-BRAKE.
[Illustration: ]
PELLÆA TERNIFOLIA, Link.
Trifoliate Cliff-Brake.
Pellæa ternifolia:—Root-stock short, thick, nodose, chaffy with very
narrow dark-brown scales; stalks clustered, purplish-black and polished,
three to six inches long; fronds as long as or longer than the stalks,
oblong-linear; pinnæ from four to fifteen pairs, all but a few of the
highest ones deeply tripartite; segments elongated-oval or
linear-obovate, sub-coriaceous, somewhat glaucous beneath, green above,
slightly mucronate, the middle one in large fronds indistinctly
petiolulate; fertile ones with the edges much recurved; involucre broad,
the edge only membranaceous.
_Pellæa ternifolia_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.
129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., i., p. 142; Fil. Exot., t. xv.—Fournier, Pl.
Mex., Crypt., p. 118.—Eaton, Ferns of the Southwest, p. 321.
_Pteris ternifolia_, Cavanilles, “Præl. 1801, No. 657.”—Hooker &
Greville, Ic. Fil., t. 126.
_Platyloma ternifolium_, J. Smith.—Brackenridge, Fil. U. S. Ex. Exped.,
p. 94.
_Allosorus ternifolius_, Kunze, in Linnæa, xxiii., p. 220.
_Pteris subverticillata_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 103.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl.,
v., p. 375.
Hab.—Texas, Trécul, No. 1334, according to Fournier. New Mexico,
Wright, according to Hooker in _Filices Exoticæ_. The only specimens
from Texas which I have of this species were collected by Dr. Sutton
Hayes, near the headwaters of the Rio Colorado of Texas. It is a common
Mexican species; it is found as far South as Peru, and reap pears in
the Hawaiian Islands.
Description:—This belongs to the same group of species as _P.
Wrightiana_, _brachyptera_ and _Ornithopus_. It has the same nodose and
scaly root-stock, dark and polished stalk, glaucescent frond and
mucronulate pinnules. In Mexico, South America and the Hawaiian Islands
it never occurs with more than trifoliolate pinnules, and this is perhaps
the best reason for considering _P. Wrightiana_ a distinct species. The
pinnæ are tripartite rather than trifoliolate, while in the other fern
just referred to, when trifoliolate the odd pinnule is more distinct and
usually stalked, a distinction indicated by Hooker, but for which I am
more indebted to the accurate discrimination of Mr. Faxon. In more
southern localities the fronds are considerably larger than Dr. Hayes’
specimens, and the segments of the pinnæ ampler. In very dry seasons the
pinnæ are considerably deflexed. The spores are trivittate as in the
related species.
PELLÆA ATROPURPUREA, Link.
Clayton’s Cliff-Brake.
Pellæa atropurpurea:—Root-stock short, knotted, chaffy with very narrow
long-pointed soft cinnamon-brown scales; stalks four to eight inches
high, terete, wiry, dark-purple or reddish-black, polished or more or
less pubescent with paleaceous hairs; fronds six to twelve inches long,
ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, evergreen, sub-coriaceous,
pinnate, usually twice pinnate near the base; rachises smooth or hairy;
pinnæ four to twelve pairs, the lower ones long-stalked, and divided into
five to nine pinnules; upper pinnæ and the pinnules nearly sessile; oval
to linear-oblong, at the base truncate or sub-cordate or sometimes
hastate, obtuse or obtusely mucronulate, terminal ones longest; veins
obscure, mostly twice forked; involucre rather broad, formed of the
continuously recurved margin, paler and membranaceous on the edge, not
fully covering the ripened sporangia.
_Pellæa atropurpurea_, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59.—Fée, Gen. Fil., p.
129.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p.
589; Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 660; Ferns of the South-West, p.
319.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.—Hooker & Baker, Syn.
Fil., p. 147.—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 119.—Williamson, Ferns
of Kentucky, p. 52, t. 12.
_Pteris atropurpurea_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1534.—Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am.,
ii., p. 261.—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 106.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.
93, t. 101.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept.,
ii., p. 668.
_Platyloma atropurpureum_, J. Smith.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 488.
_Allosorus atropurpureus_, Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 86;
Linnæa, xxiii., p. 218.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 591.—Mettenius,
Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.
_Pellæa mucronata_, Fée, 9me Mém., p. 8.
_Pellæa glabella_, Mettenius & Kuhn, in Linnæa, xxxvi., p. 87.
_Pteris spiculata_, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 92, t. 100.
_Pteris Adianti facie, caule ramulis petiolisque politiore nitore
nigricantibus, etc._, Gronovius, Fl. Virginica, ed. i., p. 197.
Hab.—Crevices of shaded calcareous rocks; from Canada to the Rocky
Mountains of British America, and southward to Alabama, Arkansas,
Indian Territory and Arizona. It has been found in several parts of
Mexico, and even in South America (“Andes of Mecoya, Pearce,” according
to _Synopsis Filicum_). It was collected by John Clayton about 1736,
“on the shore of the river Rappahannock in a shady place by the root of
a juniper near the promontory called Point Lookout,” and I take
pleasure in giving it an English name in his honor.
Description:—The root-stock of this fern is rather short, usually
somewhat nodose, and densely chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft
bright-brown scales, which in the specimens examined are destitute of
midnerve.
The stalks are rigid and wiry, terete, nearly black in color, but with a
slight reddish tinge, and usually more or less pubescent with very narrow
chaffy hairs, which are often more abundant and harsher along the
rachises, making them almost hirsute. _Pellæa glabella_ was founded on
specimens from Missouri and the North-West, which had the stalk perfectly
smooth, and the chaff of the root-stock a trifle wider than usual. The
section of the stalk shows a single U-shaped fibro-vascular bundle, and a
strong outer sclerenchymatous sheath.
The fronds are developed late in the Spring, and remain green through the
next Winter. They are almost coriaceous in texture, smooth and
dark-bluish-green above, paler, and sometimes slightly chaffy beneath.
They are from a few inches to about a foot in length, and vary in outline
from ovate to oblong-lanceolate. In seedling plants the earliest fronds
are round-cordate, the next cordate-ovate, and then follow trifoliate,
pinnate, and finally mature bipinnate fronds. The largest fronds have
about five pairs of compound pinnæ, each with from three to eleven
pinnules, and above these are from four to six pairs of simple pinnæ,
besides the terminal one, which is often the longest of all.
The pinnules and the simple pinnæ of the sterile fronds are commonly
oval, and not more than half an inch long, but those of the fertile
fronds are narrower and longer, sometimes nearly two inches long. The
base is either truncate or slightly cordate; sometimes where there is a
transition from compound to simple pinnæ, a pinna will be found
conspicuously auricled on both sides, or on the upper side only. Forked
pinnules are occasionally seen.
The margin is continuously recurved to form a rather broad involucre, and
the very edge is somewhat thinner and whiter. The veins are pinnately
arranged on both sides of the midvein, and fork about twice before
reaching the margin. The upper part of the veinlets is covered with
sporangia, which as they ripen push out from beneath the involucre. The
spores are obscurely tetrahedral and trivittate, as in the other species
of the genus.
This fern very often grows in company with _Camptosorus rhizophyllus_,
and its root-stock is often hidden beneath mosses of the genus
_Anomodon_: it takes kindly to cultivation, especially if it be planted
in the crevices of calcareous rock-work. It may occur on other than
calcareous rock, but I have never seen it on either granite, sandstone or
basalt.
Names for varieties of this species have been proposed by Pursh, and by
Fournier, but the characters assigned do not seem sufficiently
distinctive.
PELLÆA GRACILIS, Hooker.
Slender Cliff-Brake.
Pellæa gracilis:—Root-stock slender, creeping, cord-like, scantily
furnished with little ovate appressed scales; stalks scattered, slender,
a span long or less, brownish-stramineous, somewhat shining, darker and
slightly chaffy at the base; fronds two to four inches long, thin and
tender, smooth, ovate or ovate-oblong, pinnate; pinnæ few, the lower two
to four pairs once or twice pinnatifid, the uppermost simple; segments of
the sterile fronds adnate-decurrent, roundish-obovate, crenately lobed
and toothed; those of the taller fertile fronds lanceolate or
linear-oblong, and more distinct, entire or auricled, terminal ones
longest; veins rather distant, mostly once forked; involucre broad and
continuous, delicately membranaceous.
_Pellæa gracilis_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138, t. cxxxiii, B.—Eaton,
in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 659; Ferns of the South-West, p.
319.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 145.—Porter & Coulter, Syn. Fl.
Colorado, p. 153.
_Pteris gracilis_, Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 262.—Swartz, Syn. Fil.,
p. 99.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 376.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii.,
p. 668.—Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 264.
_Allosorus gracilis_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 153.—Torrey, Fl. New York,
ii., p. 486.—Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 624; ed. ii., p. 591, t.
ix.—Parry, in Owen’s Geol. Surv. of Wisconsin, etc., p.
621.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.
_Cheilanthes gracilis_, Kaulfuss, Enum. Fil., p. 209.
_Pteris Stelleri_, Gmelin, “Nov. Com. Petrop., xii., p. 519, t. 12, f.
1.”
_Allosorus Stelleri_, Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. in Imp. Ross., p.
47.—Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iv., p. 526.—Moore, Ind. Fil., p.
46.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.
_Allosorus minutus & Pteris minuta_, Turczaninow, _fide_ Moore.
Hab.—Crevices of damp and shaded calcareous rocks, especially in deep
glens; Labrador, Butler, to British Columbia, and southward to Iowa,
Parry, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Also in Colorado, near Breckinridge
City, Brandegee. Siberia, Tibet and the Himalayas. It is found in
Sunderland, Massachusetts; at Trenton Falls, Chittenango Falls, and
other deep glens in Central New York; in Lycoming and Sullivan
Counties, Pennsylvania, and in other similar places in Vermont,
Michigan, etc., but is by no means a common plant.
Description:—This is the most delicate of all the _Pellæas_, and has
fronds a good deal like those of _Cryptogramme acrostichoides_, but
tenderer, and with sub-marginal fructification. The root-stock is very
slender, scarcely more than half a line in thickness, and sometimes two
or three inches long. It is so hidden in the crevices of the rocks that
it is seldom secured by collectors. The scales are minute, appressed to
the root-stock, and almost filmy in their delicacy.
The stalks are scattered along the root-stock, and are generally about
five or six inches long, those of the fertile fronds longer, stouter and
of a darker color than the others. They are smooth and somewhat polished,
but lighter in color and far more tender in consistency than in most of
our other species of this genus.
The fertile and the sterile fronds are unlike, though both are very
delicately membranaceous, and pinnate with once or twice pinnatifid
pinnæ. The rachis is not winged in its lower half, except in very small
fronds, but above the middle it is narrowly winged, as are also its
divisions. The lowest one or two pairs of pinnæ are twice pinnatifid in
the largest specimens, but more commonly but once pinnatifid. In the
sterile fronds the segments of the pinnæ are very plainly adnate to the
secondary midrib, and are roundish or roundish-obovate in shape. They are
from three to six lines long and about two-thirds as broad. Their margin
is more or less lobed and crenately toothed. In the fertile fronds the
segments are more distinct, longer and narrower, measuring often six to
ten lines in length and one or two in width. The terminal pinna of the
frond and the terminal segments of the pinnæ are considerably longer than
the others. The veins are conspicuous, and distant, much more so than in
our other species of _Pellæa_. They fork once about midway between the
midvein and the margin, and sometimes, especially in fertile fronds, a
second time just within the margin.
The involucre is continuous, broad, and even more delicate than the frond
itself. The sporangia are comparatively scanty, and are fully covered by
the involucre. The spores are spheroid-tetrahedral and obscurely
trivittate.
Mr. Moore and some other authors are disposed to insist on the right of
priority belonging to the specific name _Stelleri_. But the name
_gracilis_ has been used by nearly every writer on American Ferns since
the time of Michaux, and will most probably be kept up rather than the
other.
It should be noted that Ruprecht considered his _Allosorus Stelleri_ to
be distinct from our plant, and mentions several points of difference in
his work on the Distribution of Vascular Cryptogamia in the Russian
Empire.
The figure is taken from specimens collected in Sunderland, Hampshire
County, Massachusetts, by the late Rev. David Peck.
EVERGREEN WOOD-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
ASPIDIUM MARGINALE, Swartz.
Evergreen Wood-Fern.
Aspidium marginale:—Root-stock ascending, stout, shaggy with long
shining-brown chaffy scales; stalks rather stout, a few inches to a foot
long, more or less chaffy with shining scales; fronds standing in a
crown, one to two feet long, evergreen, sub-coriaceous, ovate-lanceolate,
scarcely narrowed at the base, pinnate or sub-bipinnate; pinnæ almost
sessile, the lowest ones broadest, unequally triangular-lanceolate, the
middle ones lanceolate-acuminate, slightly broader above the base;
pinnules or segments smooth and dark-bluish-green above, paler and
sometimes slightly chaffy beneath, adnate to the narrowly winged
secondary rachis, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, often sub-falcate, varying
from crenately-toothed to pinnately-lobed with crenulate lobes, obtuse or
sub-acute, those next the main rachis sometimes distinct, short-stalked,
sub-cordate at the base and with rounded auricles; veins free, forked or
pinnately branched into from two to five curved and usually conspicuous
veinlets; sori rather large, placed close to the margin of the segments;
the orbicular-reniform indusia firm in texture, convex, smooth, often
lead colored.
_Aspidium marginale_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 50.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.
195, t. 45, _b._—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 259.—Pursh, Fl. Am.
Sept., ii., p. 662.—Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 107.—Hooker, Fl.
Bor.-Am., ii., p. 160.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495.—Gray,
Manual, ed. ii., p. 598.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92;
Aspidium, p. 55.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 595.—Robinson, Ferns
of Essex Co., in Bull. Essex Inst., vii., No. 3, p. 50.—Williamson,
Ferns of Kentucky, p. 97, t. xxxv.—Davenport, Catal., p. 32.
_Polypodium marginale_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552.
_Nephrodium marginale_, Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p. 267.—Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 122.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 273.
_Lastrea marginalis_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 77.—J. Smith, Ferns, Brit.
and Foreign, p. 157.—Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 281.
_Dryopteris marginalis_, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 632.—Darlington, Fl.
Cestrica, ed. iii., p. 396.
Hab.—Rocky hill-sides in rich woods, especially where black leaf-mold
has gathered between masses of rock; one of our most abundant and
characteristic ferns, confined to North America, but extending from New
Brunswick to Central Alabama, Professor Eugene A. Smith; westward to
Arkansas, Professor F. L. Harvey; Wisconsin, Parry, T. J. Hale; and
brought from the Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains of British
America by Drummond.
Description:—Professor Robinson has remarked of this species:—“This 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.” The
root-stock is much like that of _A. Filix-mas_, being very stout-closely
covered with persistent stalk-bases and very chaffy. The chaff really
grows mainly on the bases of the stalks, or covers the closely coiled
buds which crown the root-stock. It is composed of shining
ferruginous-brown thin lanceolate acuminate scales fully an inch in
length, and destitute of a thickened midnerve. The fronds grow in elegant
crowns from the apex of the root-stock, some six or eight or perhaps ten
to a plant. The stalks vary in length, but are seldom more than a foot
long. They are rather stout, round, but with a slight furrow in front,
commonly reddish-brown in color, fading when dry to straw-color, and
contain five or seven roundish fibro-vascular bundles, of which the two
anterior ones are largest, and the next two the smallest.
The outline of the fronds is ovate-lanceolate, varying to
oblong-lanceolate. The frond is commonly not quite so wide at the base as
in the middle, though in small specimens the base is often the widest.
The texture is thicker than in any other of our Wood-ferns, and the
fronds are fairly evergreen, not withering until the next year’s fronds
begin to uncoil. In cutting, the fronds vary from pinnate, with
pinnatifid pinnæ and short nearly entire lobes, to twice pinnate, with
pinnately-lobed segments. In the example selected for our plate the
pinnules are oblong, obtuse and crenulate, or at most, crenately-toothed.
Other, and perhaps no larger, fronds will have most of the pinnules twice
or even thrice as long as these, ovate-lanceolate and pointed, narrowed
to a sub-cordate and obscurely-stalked base, and deeply pinnately-lobed.
This is var. _elegans_ of Professor Robinson. Professor Lawson has a var.
_Traillæ_, which has “very large bipinnate fronds, all the pinnules
pinnatifid.” A very common form noticed by Mr. L. M. Underwood in
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, has fronds only four or five
inches long, the lower pinnæ only pinnatifid and the upper ones lobed,
the sori mostly solitary on the lobes.
The veins and veinlets of the frond are very distinct, being marked by
depressions in the upper surface in the living fronds, and visible as
dark lines in the dried specimens. The veins fork near the midvein; the
upper branch may be fertile at its tip; the lower branch is either
simple, or forks a second, and perhaps a third time. All the veinlets are
curved. On account of the venation Presl referred this plant to his
section _Arthrobotrys_.
The sori are close to the margin of the lobes, and vary from one to
twelve to a lobe. They are very large and prominent, and have firm
lead-colored orbicular-reniform indusia, which are slightly incurved
round the edge, and depressed at the sinus. As the fronds mature the
indusia become brownish. The spores are ovoid-reniform and have a narrow
crenulate wing.
WALKING-LEAF.
PINNATIFID SPLEENWORT.
[Illustration: ]
CAMPTOSORUS RHIZOPHYLLUS, Link.
Walking-Leaf.
Camptosorus rhizophyllus:—Root-stock short, creeping or ascending; stalks
tufted, slender, flaccid, green, but becoming brown near the base; fronds
a few inches to a foot long, sub-coriaceous, evergreen, smooth, gradually
narrowed from a deeply cordate and auricled base to a long and very
slender prolongation, decumbent and often rooting at the end; veins
reticulated near the midrib, and having free apices along the margin;
sori elongated, variously placed on either side of the veins, often face
to face in pairs, or extending around the upper part of the meshes;
indusium delicate.
_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_, Link, Hort. Berol., ii., p. 69; Fil. Sp.
Hort. Berol., p. 83.—Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 121, t. 4, fig.
8.—Hooker, Gen. Fil., t. 57, C; Fil. Exot., t. 85.—Gray,
Manual.—Darlington, Flora Cestr., ed. iii., p. 393.—Mettenius, Fil.
Hort. Lips., p. 67, t. 5, fig. 6.
_Asplenium rhizophyllum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1536.—Swartz, Syn. Fil.,
p. 74.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 305.—Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am., ii.,
p. 264.—Bigelow, Fl. Boston.
_Antigramma rhizophylla_, J. Smith, in Hook. Journ. Bot., iv., p. 176;
Ferns, British and Foreign, p. 226.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p.
494, t. 159 (_Asplenium_).
_Scolopendrium rhizophyllum_, Endlicher, Gen. Pl., Suppl. i., p.
1348.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 4.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p.
248.
Hab.—On mossy rocks, especially limestone. Not uncommon from Canada to
Virginia and Alabama, and westward to Wisconsin and Kansas. It occurs
in many places in Western New England, but is rare to the east. It has
lately been found a few miles from Boston; but there is a doubt whether
the station is truly natural.
Description.—The walking-leaf is usually found in patches of considerable
extent. It seems to prefer mossy calcareous rocks, and the finest
specimens are usually firmly rooted in the crevices. In Cheshire,
Connecticut, it grows freely on moist cliffs of sandstone bordering a
deep ravine; and in Orange, in the same State, it is found on scattered
ledges of serpentine. The root-stock is very short, but creeping: it
bears a few dark-fuscous scales, and is covered with the remains of
decayed stalks. A few fronds grow from the end of the root-stock, and are
supported on slender herbaceous stems a few inches long. A transverse
section of the lower part of the stalk is semicircular, and shows a very
slender triangular central thread of dark sclerenchyma, with two somewhat
roundish fibro-vascular bundles close beneath or behind it. A section
higher up shows that the stalk is there narrowly winged on each side, and
the two fibro-vascular bundles have coalesced into one of a
roundish-triangular shape. The frond is long and narrow, and rarely rises
erect, but usually is decumbent or reclined in position.
The wings of the stalk widen out into a wedge-shaped base, which is
sunken in a sinus between two basal auricles of the frond. These auricles
are scantily developed in small fronds; but in larger ones they are more
or less prominent, making the base of the frond either cordate or
hastate. In specimens from Cheshire, Connecticut, and in some from
Indiana, the auricles are drawn out into slender points, in one instance
fully four inches long. The fronds are deep-green in color, and
sub-coriaceous in texture. The fronds of mature plants are from six to
twelve, or even fifteen, inches long; and their greatest width, measured
just above the auricles, is about one-twelfth of the length, or from six
to fifteen lines. The midrib is a little paler than the rest of the
frond, and is rather prominent on the under surface. The margin of the
frond is gently undulating or entire, rarely incised.[2] The upper part
of the frond is scarcely wider than the stalk, and commonly produces a
proliferous bud at the apex, where it very frequently takes root, and
develops a new plant. In this way a single plant in a favorable position
will become a whole colony in a few years’ time.
The venation is peculiar, and the disposition of the sori depends mainly
on the peculiarities of the venation. Dr. Endlicher’s description of them
is so clear, that it is well to repeat it here: “Veins anastomosing
[i.e., reticulating] in two series of hexagonal areoles [meshes], the
angles of the marginal areoles sending out free, simple or forked,
veinlets. Sori linear, solitary in the costal areoles [those nearest the
midrib] and on the marginal veinlets: the indusium of the latter free
toward the margin of the frond; of the former, toward the costa. In the
areoles of the second series the sori are opposite: the indusium of the
lower one free toward the costa; of the other, in the opposite
direction.” To this it may be added, that in some of the areoles the two
sori meet and are confluent at the outer angle of the areole; and in this
case the two indusia are sometimes, though not always, united into one.
The indusia of the areoles next the midrib are also often bent at an
angle, and the two portions plainly united. It was from this condition of
some of the sori that the genus was named _Camptosorus_ (bent fruit-dot);
and it is only on this peculiarity that the genus can be kept separate.
The indusium is thin and delicate, composed of sinuous-margined cellules,
and is more or less wavy along the free edge. The spores are ovoid, and
have a crenated pellucid wing-like margin.
Sir W. J. Hooker referred the _Camptosorus_, together with the species of
_Antigramma_, and the very peculiar Mexican fern _Schaffneria_, to the
genus _Scolopendrium_; making the distinctive character of the genus to
rest on the sori being “in pairs, opposite to each other, one originating
on the superior side of a veinlet, the other on the inferior side of the
opposite veinlet or branch.” In this he was essentially anticipated
twenty years by Dr. Endlicher; to whom, however, _Schaffneria_ was
unknown.
It is by no means impossible that future botanists will refer all these
species to the old Linnæan genus _Asplenium_; for it is now pretty
generally admitted that differences in venation do not constitute valid
generic distinctions, and a radicant bud on the frond is common in many
undeniably genuine _Asplenia_: and since _Diplazium_, with double
involucres placed back to back on the same vein, is inseparable from
_Asplenium_, it is by no means impossible that _Scolopendrium_ and
_Camptosorus_ should be thought to have no better claim to rank as
genera.
Probably the earliest notice of the walking-leaf is in Ray’s “Historia
Plantarum,” vol. ii., p. 1927, published in 1688. It is there called
“Phyllitis parva saxatilis per summitates folii prolifera.” Other early
accounts may be found in the “Species Plantarum” of Linnæus and of
Willdenow, and in the second edition of Gronovius’s “Flora Virginica.” In
the latter work it may be seen that Gov. Colden long ago described the
auricles as being “also often acuminate.”
A second species, with membranaceous fronds acute at the base (C.
Sibiricus), occurs in Northern Asia, but is apparently very rare.
ASPLENIUM PINNATIFIDUM, Nuttall.
Pinnatifid Spleenwort.
Asplenium pinnatifidum:—Root-stock short, creeping, branched; stalks
numerous, clustered, brownish near the base, green higher up; fronds six
to nine inches high, herbaceous or sub-coriaceous, mostly erect,
lanceolate-acuminate from a broad and sub-hastate base, pinnatifid; lower
lobes roundish-ovate or rarely caudate, sometimes distinct, the margin
crenated, the upper ones gradually smaller and more and more adnate to
the winged midrib; the uppermost very short, and passing into the
sinuous-margined long acumination of the frond; veins dichotomous or
sub-pinnate and forking, free; sori few on the lower lobes, solitary on
the uppermost, those next the midrib occasionally diplazioid.
_Asplenium pinnatifidum_, Nuttall, Genera of N. Amer. Plants, ii., p.
251.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 85.—Gray,
Manual.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora of Southern U. S., p.
592.—Hooker, Icones Plantarum, t. 927; Sp. Fil., iii., p.
91.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 72, t. 10, figs. 1, 2;
Asplenium, p. 126.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 194.
_Asplenium rhizophyllum_, var. _pinnatifidum_, Muhlenberg, Catalogus
Plant. Am. Sept., ed. ii., p. 102.—Barton, Compendium Floræ
Philad., ii., p. 210.—Eaton,[3] Manual of Botany, ed. iii., p. 188,
etc.—Torrey, Compendium, p. 383.
Hab.—Discovered by Thomas Nuttall in crevices of rocks along the
Schuylkill River, near Philadelphia; also found along the Wissahickon
Creek in the same vicinity. Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Prof.
Thomas C. Porter. On moist cliffs of sandstone in the Cumberland
Mountains, East Tennessee, Prof. F. H. Bradley. Hancock County,
Alabama, Hon. T. M. Peters. Mine-la-Motte, Southern Missouri, on
sandstone rocks, Dr. Engelmann.
Description.—The root-stocks of this little fern are creeping, branched
and often entangled, and chaffy with narrow lance-acuminate dark-fuscous
scales. The cellular structure of these scales is similar to that of the
scales of _A. ebeneum_, the cells being oblong-rectangular, and arranged
in straight longitudinal rows. The stalks are from two to four inches
long, and slightly chaffy when young: they are brown and shining at the
base, but green higher up, except that a narrow line of brown is
continued up the under side of the stalk nearly or quite to the base of
the frond. A section made near the lower extremity of the stalk is nearly
semicircular, and discloses two roundish fibro-vascular bundles side by
side near the middle, and a minute thread of sclerenchyma, or hard dark
tissue, on the inner side of each bundle. A section just below the frond
shows the two fibro-vascular bundles united into one, and the angles of
the stalk slightly extended, forming very narrow wing-like borders. The
minute inner filaments of sclerenchyma are never continued far up the
stalk, and are sometimes wanting altogether.
The frond is from three to six inches long, and usually half an inch to
an inch broad at the base, from which the general outline tapers to a
long and slender point, not so long as the prolongation of the
walking-leaf, and very rarely, if ever, rooting at the apex.[4] The
fronds are mostly erect, sub-coriaceous or firmly membranaceous, smooth
above, but with a few minute setulose scales beneath, deeply pinnatifid
in the lower and middle portion, and sinuately lobed above, the long
terminal portion undulate on the margins. The midrib is broad and well
defined: it is winged throughout its length; the wing narrow at the base
of the frond, but constantly widening upwards.
The lobes are irregularly roundish-ovate, sinuate, crenate or slightly
toothed; the lowest ones occasionally drawn out into an acuminate point
an inch long. Most of the lobes are attached to the wing of the midrib by
a broad base: the lower ones sometimes have a short stalk.
The veins are everywhere free: in the lower lobes, if these are
acuminate, the veins are pinnately branched from a mid-vein; elsewhere
they are forked or dichotomous. The sori are mostly single, though here
and there one will be diplazioid,—most commonly the lowest one on the
superior side of the lobe. The indusia are very delicate; and the free
edge is directed toward the middle of the lobe, excepting the indusia of
the sori nearest the midrib, and these open toward the midrib. The sori
are usually very full of sporangia, and, when ripe, nearly cover the back
of the frond: even the narrow acumination bears a sorus at each
undulation of the margin. Spores ovoid-bean-shaped, with reticulating
ridges and an irregular winged border.
This is now admitted by all pteridologists to be a distinct species;
though it was formerly confounded with the _Camptosorus_, from which it
is clearly distinguished by the free veins, the mostly single indusia,
and the usual absence of a proliferous bud at the apex of the frond. Some
of the less compound and more attenuated forms of _A. montanum_ come much
nearer to it; but in its simplest form this other species always has the
fronds fairly pinnate, and its more compound forms resemble the _A.
pinnatifidum_ very little.
I take occasion to express my thanks to Hon. Thomas M. Peters of Moulton,
Alabama, who has sent me abundant and fine specimens of this fern and of
other rare species which are found in the northern part of Alabama.
SENSITIVE FERN.
[Illustration: ]
ONOCLEA SENSIBILIS, Linnæus.
Sensitive Fern.
Onoclea sensibilis:—Root-stock creeping, elongated; stalks scattered,
nearly chaffless, a few inches to over a foot high; fronds dimorphous;
sterile ones triangular-ovate, foliaceous, smooth, quickly withering when
plucked, deeply pinnatifid into several oblong-lanceolate entire or
sinuate or sinuately pinnatifid segments, the lowest pair sometimes
distinct, the rest connected by a wing which widens upwards; the veins
reticulated and forming narrow paracostal areoles, and, outside of these,
copious oblong or hexagonal meshes; fertile fronds shorter, contracted,
rigid, closely bipinnate; the pinnules rolled up into berry-like bodies;
veins free, simple or forked, soriferous on the back; sporangia borne on
an elevated receptacle, half surrounded by a very delicate somewhat
hood-like indusium attached at the base of the receptacle.
_Onoclea sensibilis_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1517.—Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am.,
ii., p. 272.—Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 110.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p.
95, t. 102.—Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 287.—Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept.,
ii., p. 665.—Hooker, Gen. Fil., t. lxxxii; Fl. Bor.-Am., ii., p.
262; Sp. Fil., iii., p. 160.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p.
499.—Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 457; ed. ii., p. 599, t. xii; ed. v.,
p. 668, t. xviii; Botany of Japan, in Mem. Amer. Acad. (n. s.) vi.,
p. 421.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 97.—Maximowicz, Prim. Fl.
Amur., p. 337.—Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 596.—Hooker & Baker,
Syn. Fil., p. 46.—Miquel, Prolus. Fl. Jap., in Ann. Mus. Bot.
Lugd.-Batav., iii., p. 179.—Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atlant., p.
157.—Redfield, in Bulletin of Torrey Botan. Club, vi., p.
4.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 109, t. xli; Fern-Etchings, t.
xlv.
_Onoclea obtusilobata_, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 95, t. 103.—Pursh, Fl.
Am. Sept., ii., p. 665.
_Onoclea obtusiloba_, Link, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 37.
_Osmunda frondibus pinnatis foliolis superioribus basi coadunatis,
omnibus lanceolatis, pinnato-sinuatis_, Linnæus, Hort. Cliff., p.
472.—Gronovius, Fl. Virginica, p. 196; ed. ii., p, 163.—(Other
ancient names are repeated by Linnæus and Willdenow.)
Hab.—Wet meadows and thickets, from New Brunswick to the Saskatchewan,
extending southward through Dacotah, Kansas, and Arkansas to Louisiana,
and eastward to St. Augustine, Florida, one of our commonest and most
abundant ferns, often occupying large portions of land to the partial
exclusion of other plants. Not found in western America or in Europe,
but occurring in Japan, Mantchooria and eastern Siberia.
Description:—The root-stock is about one-third of an inch thick, and
irregularly roundish in section. It creeps widely below the surface of
the ground, rooting freely and often forking, so that in cultivation it
is very difficult to confine the plant to one spot. The root-stock
contains six or eight roundish or flattened fibro-vascular bundles
arranged in a circle near the outer surface. It bears no chaff. The
stalks are scattered along its length, the apex being covered with the
thickened stalk-bases of next year’s fronds, and the stalks for the
present year rising a few inches back of the apex.
The fronds are truly dimorphous, the fertile ones being so unlike the
sterile, that no one who is unacquainted with the plant would suppose
they had anything to do with each other.
The sterile fronds vary in length from one or two inches to fifteen or
eighteen, and are supported on stalks usually rather longer still, so
that, while the smallest plants may be concealed in the grass, the
tallest ones are often fully three feet high. The bases of the stalks are
flattened, discolored and very sparingly chaffy; the upper part is green
in the living plant, brownish-stramineous when dried, smooth and naked,
rounded at the back, and slightly furrowed in front. It contains two
obliquely-placed strap-shaped fibro-vascular bundles, which unite below
the base of the frond and form one having a U-shaped section. The outline
of the sterile fronds is triangular or triangular-ovate. The midrib is
winged, either from the very base, or from the second pair of segments;
the wing at its lower extremity very narrow, but gradually widening
towards the apex, so that its greatest width is but little less than that
of the terminal segment. The number of segments in the smallest fronds is
two or three on each side; in the largest fronds twelve or thirteen on
each side. The lowest segments are rather more than half as long as the
whole frond; the next segments usually a little smaller, but sometimes a
little longer than the first pair, and the remaining ones rapidly
decreasing. The segments are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate,
narrowed at the base, especially the lower ones, and either rounded or
sub-acute at the apex. The sinuses between them are rounded, and are
gradually narrowed towards the apex of the frond. The segments are very
minutely serrulate on the edges; the smallest ones otherwise entire, and
the larger ones either with sinuous margins or, in large fronds, deeply
sinuous-pinnatifid. The texture is herbaceous, the surfaces perfectly
smooth, the color of the upper surface grass-green, of the lower surface
paler and slightly glaucescent. The fronds wilt very soon after plucking
them, and in wilting there is a slight disposition to fold the segments
together, face to face, for which reason the plant has received the name
of “Sensitive-Fern.” The first frost of autumn destroys the sterile
fronds; and a late frost in May or June does the same. The midribs are
prominent, and the veins conspicuous; the latter being copiously
reticulated into areoles which enclose no free veinlets. Along the sides
of the midribs and midveins are very long and narrow areoles, and outside
of these are obliquely-placed oblong areoles in several irregular rows.
The fertile fronds are not very common, and a young botanist may search
in vain for them for a long time. They stand only about half as high as
the sterile fronds, and are very rigid. They are nearly black in color:
in winter they dry up, but remain erect through the next summer, so that
a fruiting plant often has fertile fronds standing of two years’ growth.
The frond is only a few (usually four to six) inches long, and consists
of from four to ten pairs of appressed fleshy or cartilaginous pinnæ,
which are divided into a double row of sub-globose bead-like segments or
pinnules; the whole looking like a small and narrow but dense cluster of
diminutive grapes. Each pinnule has its edges so much recurved that the
whole forms a sort of pouch, apparently filled with sporangia.
Mr. Faxon has made a careful study of the sori, and has very kindly
furnished the account given below.[5]
The articulations of the sporangia are said by Fée to be twenty-eight to
thirty-two, and more numerous than in any other fern. I have counted only
thirty at most, and more frequently only twenty-eight. The spores are
ovoid and very dark-colored.
Var. _obtusilobata_, Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 499, t. clx (_Onoclea
obtusilobata_, Schkuhr), is not a permanent variation of the species, but
is based on a not infrequent condition of the plant, in which the pinnæ
of some of the foliaceous fronds become deeply pinnatifid into obovate
segments, which have mostly free veins and imperfectly developed sori.
The indusia appear as little whitish scales on the back of the veins. It
occurs in almost all places where the plant is common, is often produced
from root-stocks which bear also normal fronds, and presents all
gradations from the usual sterile frond to the proper fertile one.
_Ragiopteris onocleoides_ of Presl is founded on a young fertile frond of
this species placed with a sterile one of what Milde judges to be a
monstrous form of _Aspidium Filix-mas_. Maximowicz describes a var.
_interrupta_, from the Amoor region, in which the fertile frond nearly
equals the sterile, and has elongated pinnæ, with remote segments. This
condition is also sometimes seen in American specimens, and is hardly a
true variety.
In an article on “The late Extinct Floras of North America,” which
appeared in Vol. ix of the Annals of the New York Lyceum of Natural
History, in April, 1868, Professor Newberry describes certain fossil
specimens of ferns occurring in Miocene argillaceous limestone at Fort
Union, Dacotah, and refers them with little hesitation to this species. I
have not seen the specimens, but, as similar venation and not very
dissimilar fronds are seen in Woodwardia and Pteris, one may perhaps
doubt the absolute certainty of the identification.
Footnotes
[1]Milde indicates several other unimportant variations; and Hooker &
Baker have as varieties of this species the East Indian _Aspidium
cochleatum_, and _Aspidium elongatum_, from Madeira and the Canary
Islands. The latter they give as occurring also in the southern
United States, evidently supposing it to be the long-lost _A.
Ludovicianum_ of Kunze. For abundant synonymy of _Aspidium Filix-mas_
the student is referred especially to the works of Hooker, Milde,
Mettenius and Moore, as quoted above.
[2]See the “Flora of New York” for some figures of laciniated and forking
fronds.
[3]Prof. Amos Eaton, grandfather of the present writer. Eaton’s “Manual
of Botany” went through eight editions from 1817 to 1841.
[4]I find one or two instances of a slight enlargement of the apex, as if
there were an attempt to form a proliferous bud.
[5]“In _O. sensibilis_ the sori are borne on the middle of the vein, and
consist of a tough cylindrical receptacle, three or four diameters in
height, bearing sporangia thickly all over its surface, and covered
when young by a delicate hood-like indusium, attached half-way or
more around the base of the receptacle on the inferior side, and
having the crenulate-margined opening toward the apex of the segment.
At an early stage the blackberry-shaped sorus is almost entirely
covered by the indusium, which resembles a closely drawn cowl, but
with the growth of the sporangia it is thrown back, or rent, and soon
disappears, the sori becoming confluent. The receptacle is very
persistent, and may be seen, covered with the stalks of the
sporangia, in the dried last-year’s fertile fronds, which are always
found where the plant grows.”
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