Part 34

The fronds of the Fragrant Shield Fern grow in a crown and the fertile ones fruit in great abundance.

Eaton writes as follows touching the fragrance of this fern and its use as a beverage:

"The pleasant odor of this 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 following delightful description of the Fragrant Shield Fern was written by Mr. C. G. Pringle, and is taken from Meehan's "Native Flowers and Ferns":

"In the several stations of Aspidium fragrans among the Green Mountains which I have explored, the plant is always seen growing from the crevices or on the narrow shelves of dry cliffs--not often such cliffs as are exposed to the sunlight, unless it be on the summits of the mountains, but usually such cliffs as are shaded by firs, and notably such as overhang mountain-rivulets and waterfalls. When I visit such places in summer, the niches occupied by the plants are quite dry. I think it would be fatal to the plant if much spray should fall on it during the season of its active growth. When you enter the shade and solitude of the haunts of this fern, its presence is betrayed by its resinous odor; looking up the face of the cliff, usually mottled with lichens and moss, you see it often far above your reach hanging against the rock, masses of dead brown fronds, the accumulations of many years, preserved by the resinous principle which pervades them; for the fronds, as they disport regularly about the elongating caudex, fall right and left precisely like a woman's hair. Above the tuft of drooping dead fronds, which radiate from the centre of the plant, grow from six to twenty green fronds, which represent the growth of the season, those of the preceding year dying toward autumn."

47. BRAUN'S HOLLY FERN

Aspidium aculeatum, var. Braunii (Dryopteris Braunii)

Canada to Maine, the mountains of Pennsylvania and westward, in deep rocky woods. One to more than two feet long, with chaffy stalks, having brown scales.

Fronds.--Thick, twice-pinnate; pinnæ lanceolate, tapering both ways; pinnules covered with hairs and scales, truncate, nearly rectangular at the base; fruit-dots roundish, small, mostly near the midveins; indusium orbicular, entire.

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

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

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

BRAUN'S HOLLY FERN

a Portion of pinna b Fertile pinnule, indusia gone]

48. COMMON POLYPODY. SNAKE FERN

Polypodium vulgare

Almost throughout North America, on rocks. A few inches to more than a foot high.

Fronds.--Oblong, smooth, somewhat leathery, cut into narrowly oblong, usually obtuse divisions which almost reach the rachis; fruit-dots large, round, half-way between the midrib and margin; indusium, none.

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

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

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

Thoreau writes of the Polypody with peculiar sympathy:

"It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when the brown and withered leaves strew the ground and almost every plant is fallen withered, to come upon a patch of polypody ... on some rocky hill-side in the woods, where, in the midst of dry and rustling leaves, defying frost, it stands so freshly green and full of life. The mere greenness, which was not remarkable in the summer, is positively interesting now. My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed.... Why is not this form copied by our sculptors instead of the foreign acanthus leaves and bays? How fit for a tuft about the base of a column! The sight of this unwithering green leaf excites me like red at some seasons. Are not wood-frogs the philosophers who frequent these groves? Methinks I imbibe a cool, composed, frog-like philosophy when I behold them. The form of the polypody is strangely interesting, it is even outlandish. Some forms, though common in our midst, are thus perennially foreign as the growth of other latitudes.... The bare outline of the polypody thrills me strangely. It only perplexes me. Simple as it is, it is as strange as an oriental character. It is quite independent of my race and of the Indian, and of all mankind. It is a fabulous, mythological form, such as prevailed when the earth and air and water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creatures that we find. It is contemporary with them, and affects us somewhat as the sight of them might do."

49. LONG BEECH FERN

Phegopteris polypodioides (P. Phegopteris)

Newfoundland to Alaska, south to mountains of Virginia, wet woods and hill-sides. Six or eight inches to more than a foot high.

Fronds.--Triangular, usually longer than broad (4-9 inches long, 3-6 inches broad), downy, especially beneath, thin, once-pinnate; pinnæ lance-shaped, the lower pair noticeably standing forward and deflexed, cut into oblong, obtuse segments; fruit-dots small, round, near the margin; indusium, none.

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