Part 35

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

b Tip of pinna]

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

50. BROAD BEECH FERN. HEXAGON BEECH FERN

Phegopteris hexagonoptera

Quebec to Florida, in dry woods and on hill-sides, with stalks eight to eighteen inches long.

Fronds.--Triangular, as broad or broader than long, seven to twelve inches broad, thin, slightly hairy, often finely glandular beneath, fragrant, once-pinnate; pinnæ, the large, lowest ones broadest near the middle and cut nearly to the midrib into linear-oblong, obtuse segments, the middle ones lance-shaped, tapering, the upper ones oblong, obtuse, toothed or entire; basal segments of the pinnæ forming a continuous, many-angled wing along the main rachis; fruit-dots round, small, near the margin; indusium, none.

BROAD BEECH FERN]

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

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

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

51. OAK FERN

Phegopteris Dryopteris

Northeastern United States to Virginia, west to Oregon and Alaska, usually in wet woods, with stalks six to nine inches long.

Fronds.--Usually longer than broad, four to nine inches long, broadly triangular, the three primary divisions widely spreading, smooth, once or twice-pinnate; fruit-dots small, round, near the margin; indusium, none.

OAK FERN]

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

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

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

52. BULBLET BLADDER FERN

Cystopteris bulbifera

Canada to Tennessee, on wet rocks, preferring limestone. One to three feet long, with light-colored, somewhat brittle stalks.

Fronds.--Elongated, lance-shaped from a broad base, often bearing beneath large, fleshy bulbs, usually twice-pinnate; pinnæ lance-oblong, pointed; pinnules toothed or deeply lobed; fruit-dots roundish, indusium short, hood-like, attached by a broad base on the side toward the midrib, early thrown back and withering so that the mature fruit-dots appear arched.

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

BULBLET BLADDER FERN

a Portion of fruiting pinna]

Although the plant is never seen at its best save in some such neighborhood as this, its slender, feathery fronds are always possessed of singular grace and charm, whether undulating along the dried rocky bed of a mountain brook or bending till their slender tips nearly touch the rushing stream or growing quite away from the rocks which are their natural and usual companions among the moss-grown trunks and fallen trees of the wet woods.

I know no other fern, save the climbing fern, which is so vine-like and clinging. In reality its stalk and midrib are somewhat brittle, yet this brittleness does not prevent its adapting itself with supple and exquisite curves to whatever support it has chosen.