The Fern Lover's Companion Part 1

The Fern Lover's Companion.

by George Henry Tilton.

PREFACE

A lover of nature feels the fascination of the ferns though he may know little of their names and habits. Beholding them in their native haunts, adorning the rugged cliffs, gracefully fringing the water-courses, or waving their stately fronds on the borders of woodlands, he feels their call to a closer acquaintance. Happy would he be to receive instruction from a living teacher: His next preference would be the companions.h.i.+p of a good fern book. Such a help we aim to give him in this manual. If he will con it diligently, consulting its glossary for the meaning of terms while he quickens his powers of observation by studying real specimens, he may hope to learn the names and chief qualities of our most common ferns in a single season.

Our most productive period in fern literature was between 1878, when Williamson published his "Ferns of Kentucky," and 1905, when Clute issued, "Our Ferns in Their Haunts." Between these flourished D.C. Eaton, Davenport, Waters, Dodge, Parsons, Eastman, Underwood, A.A. Eaton, Slosson, and others. All their works are now out of print except Clute's just mentioned and Mrs. Parsons' "How to Know the Ferns." Both of these are valuable handbooks and amply ill.u.s.trated. Clute's is larger, more scholarly, and more inclusive of rare species, with an ill.u.s.trated key to the genera; while Mrs. Parsons' is more simple and popular, with a naive charm that creates for it a constant demand.

We trust there is room also for this unpretentious, but progressive, handbook, designed to stimulate interest in the ferns and to aid the average student in learning their names and meaning. Its geographical limits include the northeastern states and Canada. Its nomenclature follows in the main the seventh edition of Gray's Manual, while the emendations set forth in _Rhodora_, of October, 1919, and also a few terms of later adoption are embodied, either as synonyms or subst.i.tutes for the more familiar Latin names of the Manual, and are indicated by a different type.

In every case the student has before him both the older and the more recent terms from which to choose. However, since the book is written primarily for lovers of Nature, many of whom are unfamiliar with scientific terms, the common English names are everywhere given prominence, and strange to say are less subject to change and controversy than the Latin. There is no doubt what species is meant when one speaks of the Christmas fern, the ostrich fern, the long beech fern, the interrupted fern, etc. The use of the common names will lead to the knowledge and enjoyment of the scientific terms.

A friend unfamiliar with Latin has asked for pointers to aid in p.r.o.nouncing the scientific names of ferns. Following Gray, Wood, and others we have marked each accented syllable with either the grave (`) or acute (') accent, the former showing that the vowel over which it stands has its long sound, while the latter indicates the short or modified sound. Let it be remembered that any syllable with either of these marks over it is the accented syllable, whose sound will be long or short according to the slant of the mark.

We have appropriated from many sources such material as suited our purpose.

Our interest in ferns dates back to our college days at Amherst, when we collected our first specimens in a rough, bushy swamp in Hadley. We found here a fine colony of the climbing fern (_LyG.o.dium_). We recall the slender fronds climbing over the low bushes, unique twiners, charming, indeed, in their native habitat. We have since collected and studied specimens of nearly every New England fern, and have carefully examined most of the other species mentioned in this book. By courtesy of the librarian, Mr.

William P. Rich, we have made large use of the famous Davenport herbarium in the Ma.s.sachusetts Horticultural library, and through the kindness of the daughter, Miss Mary E. Davenport, we have freely consulted the larger unmounted collection of ferns at the Davenport homestead, at Medford,[1]

finding here a very large and fine a.s.sortment of _Botrychiums_, including a real _B. ternatum_ from j.a.pan.

[Footnote 1: Recently donated to the Gray Herbarium.]

For numerous facts and suggestions we are indebted to the twenty volumes of the _Fern Bulletin_, and also to its able editor, Mr. Willard N. Clute. To him we are greatly obligated for the use of photographs and plates, and especially for helpful counsel on many items. We appreciate the helpfulness of the _American Fern Journal_ and its obliging editor, Mr. E.J. Winslow.

To our friend, Mr. C.H. Knowlton, our thanks are due for the revision of the checklist and for much helpful advice, and we are grateful to Mr.

S.N.F. Sanford, of the Boston Society of Natural History, for numerous courtesies; but more especially to Mr. C.A. Weatherby for his expert and helpful inspection of the entire ma.n.u.script.

The ill.u.s.trations have been carefully selected; many of them from original negatives bequeathed to the author by his friend, Henry Lincoln Clapp, pioneer and chief promoter of school gardens in America. Some have been photographed from the author's herbarium, and from living ferns. A few are from the choice herbarium of Mr. George E. Davenport, and also a few reprints have been made from fern books, for which due credit is given. The Scott's spleenwort, on the dedication page, is reprinted from Clute's "Our Ferns in Their Haunts."

INTRODUCTION

Th.o.r.eau tells us, "Nature made a fern for pure leaves." Fern leaves are in the highest order of cryptogams. Like those of flowering plants they are reinforced by woody fibres running through their stems, keeping them erect while permitting graceful curves. Their exquisite symmetry of form, their frequent finely cut borders, and their rich shades of green combine to make them objects of rare beauty; while their unique vernation and method of fruiting along with their wonderful mystery of reproduction invest them with marked scientific interest affording stimulus and culture to the thoughtful mind. By peculiar enchantments these charming plants allure the ardent Nature-lover to observe their haunts and habits.

"Oh, then most gracefully they wave In the forest, like a sea, And dear as they are beautiful Are these fern leaves to me."

As a rule the larger and coa.r.s.er ferns grow in moist, shady situations, as swamps, ravines, and damp woods; while the smaller ones are more apt to be found along mountain ranges in some dry and even exposed locality. A tiny crevice in some high cliff is not infrequently chosen by these fascinating little plants, which protect themselves from drought by a.s.suming a mantle of light wool, or of hair and chaff, with, perhaps, a covering of white powder as in some cloak ferns--thus keeping a layer of moist air next to the surface of the leaf, and checking transpiration.

Some of the rock-loving ferns in dry places are known as "resurrection"

ferns, reviving after their leaves have turned sere and brown. A touch of rain, and lo! they are green and flouris.h.i.+ng.

Ferns vary in height from the diminutive filmy fern of less than an inch to the vast tree ferns of the tropics, reaching a height of sixty feet or more.

REPRODUCTION

Ferns are propagated in various ways. A frequent method is by perennial rootstocks, which often creep beneath the surface, sending up, it may be, single fronds, as in the common bracken, or graceful leaf-crowns, as in the cinnamon fern. The bladder fern is propagated in part from its bulblets, while the walking leaf bends over to the earth and roots at the tip.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MALE s.h.i.+ELD FERN. Fern Reproduction by the Prothallium]

Ferns are also reproduced by spores, a process mysterious and marvellous as a fairy tale. Instead of seeds the fern produces spores, which are little one-celled bodies without an embryo and may be likened to buds. A spore falls upon damp soil and germinates, producing a small, green, s.h.i.+eld-shaped patch much smaller than a dime, which is called a prothallium (or prothallus). On its under surface delicate root hairs grow to give it stability and nutriment; also two sorts of reproductive organs known as antheridia and archegnia, the male and female growths a.n.a.logous to the stamens and pistils in flowers. From the former spring small, active, spiral bodies called antherozids, which lash about in the moisture of the prothallium until they find the archegnia, the cells of which are so arranged in each case as to form a tube around the central cell, which is called the osphere, or egg-cell, the point to be fertilized. When one of the entering antherozids reaches this point the desired change is effected, and the ca.n.a.l of the archegnium closes. The empty osphere becomes the quickened osph.o.r.e whose newly begotten plant germ unfolds normally by the multiplication of cells that become, in turn, root, stem, first leaf, etc., while the prothallium no longer needed to sustain its offspring withers away.[1]

[Footnote 1: In the accompanying ill.u.s.tration, it should be remembered that the reproductive parts of a fern are microscopic and cannot be seen by the naked eye.]

Fern plants have been known to spring directly from the prothallus by a budding process apart from the organs of fertilization, showing that Nature "fulfills herself in many ways."[2]

[Footnote 2: The scientific term for this method of reproduction is apogamy (apart from marriage). Sometimes the prothallus itself buds directly from the frond without spores, for which process the term apospory is used.

(Meaning, literally, without spores.)]

VERNATION

All true ferns come out of the ground head foremost, coiled up like a watch-spring, and are designated as "fiddle-heads," or crosiers. (A real crosier is a bishop's staff.) Some of these odd young growths are covered with "fern wool," which birds often use in lining their nests. This wool usually disappears later as the crosier unfolds into the broad green blade.

The development of plant shoots from the bud is called vernation (Latin, _ver_ meaning spring), and this unique uncoiling of ferns, "circinnate vernation."

VEINS

The veins of a fern are free, when, branching from the mid-vein, they do not connect with each other, and simple when they do not fork. When the veins intersect they are said to anastomose (Greek, an opening, or network), and their meshes are called areolae or areoles (Latin, _areola_, a little open s.p.a.ce).

EXPLANATION OF TERMS

A frond is said to be pinnate (Latin, _pinna_, a feather), when its primary divisions extend to the rachis, as in the Christmas fern (Fig. 1). A frond is bipinnate (Latin, _bis_, twice) when the lobes of the pinnae extend to the midvein as in the royal fern (Fig. 2). These divisions of the pinnae are called pinnules. When a frond is tripinnate the last complete divisions are called ultimate pinnules or segments. A frond is pinnatifid when its lobes extend halfway or more to the rachis or midvein as in the middle lobes of the pinnatifid spleenwort (Fig. 3). The pinnae of a frond are often pinnatifid when the frond itself is pinnate; and a frond may be pinnate in its lower part and become pinnatifid higher up as in the pinnatifid spleenwort just mentioned (Fig. 3).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3]

The divisions of a pinnatifid leaf are called segments; of a bipinnatifid or tripinnatifid leaf, ultimate segments.

SPORaNGIA AND FRUIT DOTS

Fern spores are formed in little sacs known as spore-cases or sporangia (Fig. 4). They are usually cl.u.s.tered in dots or lines on the back or margin of a frond, either on or at the end of a small vein, or in spike-like racemes on separate stalks. Sori (singular _sorus_, a heap), or fruit dots may be naked as in the polypody, but are usually covered with a thin, delicate membrane, known as the indusium (Greek, a dress, or mantle). The family or genus of a fern is often determined by the shape of its indusium; e.g., the indusium of the woodsias is star-shaped; of the d.i.c.ksonias, cup-shaped; of the aspleniums, linear; of the wood ferns, kidney-shaped, etc.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4]

In many ferns the sporangia are surrounded in whole or in part by a vertical, elastic ring (annulus) reminding one of a small, brown worm closely coiled (Fig. 4). As the spores mature, the ring contracts and bursts with considerable force, scattering the spores. The spores of the different genera mature at different times from May to September. A good time to collect ferns is just before the fruiting season. (For times of fruiting see individual descriptions or chronological chart on page 220.)

HELPFUL HINTS

The following hints may be helpful to the young collector: