The Fern Lover's Companion Part 12

THE BLADDER FERNS. _Cystopteris_

"Mark ye the ferns that clothe these dripping rocks, Their hair-like stalks, though trembling 'neath the shock Of falling spraydrops, rooted firmly there."

The bladder ferns are a dainty, rock-loving family partial to a limestone soil. (The Greek name _cystopteris_ means bladder fern, so called in allusion to the hood-shaped indusium.)

(1) THE BULBLET BLADDER FERN

_Cystopteris bulbifera. Flix bulbifera_

Fronds lanceolate, elongated, one to three feet long, twice pinnate. Pinnae lanceolate-oblong, pointed, horizontal, the lowest pair longest. Rachis and pinnae often bearing bulblets beneath. Pinnules toothed or deeply lobed.

Indusium short, truncate on the free side. Stipe short.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bulblet Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris bulbifera_ (Willoughby, Vt., 1904, G.H.T.)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bulblet Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris bulbifera_]

One of the most graceful and attractive of our native ferns; an object of beauty, whether standing alone or ma.s.sed with other growths. It is very easily cultivated and one of the best for draping. "We may drape our homes by the yard," says Woolson, "with the most graceful and filmy of our common ferns, the bladder fern." This fern and the maidenhair were introduced into Europe in 1628 by John Tradescant, the first from America.

It delights in shaded ravines and dripping hillsides in limestone districts. While producing spores freely it seems to propagate its species mainly by bulblets, which, falling into a moist soil, at once send out a pair of growing roots, while a tiny frond starts to uncoil from the heart of the bulb. Mt. Toby, Ma.s.s., Willoughby Mountain, Vt., calcareous regions in Maine, and west of the Connecticut River, Newfoundland to Manitoba, Wisconsin and Iowa; south to northern Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas.

(2) THE COMMON BLADDER FERN

_Cystopteris fragilis. Filix fragilis_

Stipe long and brittle. Fronds oblong-lanceolate, five to twelve inches long, twice pinnate, the pinnae often pinnatifid or cut-toothed, ovate-lanceolate, decurrent on the winged rachis. Indusium appearing acute at the free end. Very variable in the cutting of the pinnules.

The fragile bladder fern, as it is often called, and which the name _fragilis_ suggests, is the earliest to appear in the spring, and the first to disappear, as by the end of July it has discharged its spores and withered away. Often, however, a new crop springs up by the last of August, as if Nature were renewing her youth. In outline the fragile bladder fern suggests the blunt-lobed Woodsia, but in the latter the pinnae and pinnules are usually broader and blunter, and its indusium splits into jagged lobes.

Rather common in damp, shady places where rocks abound. In one form or another, found nearly throughout the world though only on mountains in the tropics.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fragile Bladder Fern, Fruited Portion]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fragile Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris fragilis_ (Wakefield, Ma.s.s.)]

KEY TO THE WOODSIAS

Stipes not jointed: Indusium ample, segments broad, frond without hairs.

Obtuse Woodsia.

Pinnae hispidulous, with white jointed hairs beneath.

Rocky Mountain Woodsia.

Fronds bright green, pinnae glabrous, oblong.

Oregon Woodsia.

Fronds dull green, lanceolate, glandular beneath.

Cathcart's Woodsia.

Stipes obscurely jointed near the base: Fronds more or less chaffy, pinnae oblong to ovate, crowded. Rusty Woodsia.

Fronds linear, smooth, pinnae deltoid or orbicular.

Smooth Woodsia.

Fronds lanceolate, a few white scales beneath; pinnae deltoid-ovate. Alpine Woodsia.

THE WOODSIAS

Small, tufted, pinnately divided ferns. Fruit-dots borne on the back of simply forked, free veins. Indusium fixed beneath the sori, thin and often evanescent, either small and open, or early bursting at the top into irregular pieces or lobes. (Named for James Woods, an English botanist.)

(1) RUSTY WOODSIA. _Woodsia ilvensis_

Fronds oblong-lanceolate, three to ten inches high, rather smooth above, thickly clothed underneath with rusty, bristle-like chaff. Pinnate, the pinnae crowded, sessile, cut into oblong segments. Fruit-dots near the margin often confluent at maturity. Indusium divided nearly in the center into slender hairs which are curled over the sporangia. Stipes jointed an inch or so above the rootstock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rusty Woodsia, _Woodsia ilvensis_]

The rusty Woodsia is decidedly a rock-loving fern, and often grows on high cliffs exposed to the sun; its rootstock and fronds are covered with silver-white, hair-like scales, especially underneath. These scales turn brown in age, whence the name, rusty. As the short stipes separate at the joints from the rootstock, they leave at the base a thick stubble, which serves to identify the fern. Exposed rocks, Labrador to North Carolina and westward. Rather common in New England. Said to be very abundant on the trap rock hillocks about Little Falls, N.J., where it grows in dense tufts.

(2) NORTHERN WOODSIA. ALPINE WOODSIA

_Woodsia alpna. Woodsia hyperbrea_

Fronds narrowly lanceolate, two to six inches long, smooth above, somewhat hairy beneath, pinnate. Pinnae triangular-ovate, obtuse, lobed, the lobes few and nearly entire. Fruit-dots rarely confluent. Indusium as in _Woodsia ilvensis_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Details of Northern Woodsia. _Woodsia alpina_]

Thought by some botanists to be a smooth form of _Woodsia ilvensis_. It was discovered in the United States by Horace Mann, in 1863, at Willoughby Lake, Vt. Twenty years or more later it was collected by C.H. Peck in the Adirondacks, who supposed it to be _Woodsia_ _glabella_. In 1897 it was rediscovered at Willoughby Lake by C.H. Pringle. New York, Vermont, Maine, and British America. Rare.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Northern Woodsia, _Woodsia alpina_ (From Waters' "Ferns,"

Henry Holt & Co.)]

(3) BLUNT-LOBED WOODSIA. _Woodsia obtusa_

Fronds broadly lanceolate, ten to eighteen inches long, nearly twice pinnate, often minutely glandular. Pinnae rather remote, triangular-ovate or oblong, pinnately parted into obtuse, oblong, toothed segments.

Veins forked. Fruit-dots on or near the margin of the lobes. Indusium conspicuous, at length splitting into several spreading, jagged lobes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Blunt-lobed Woodsia. _Woodsia obtusa_]

This is our most common species of Woodsia and it has a wider range than the others, extending from Maine and Nova Scotia to Georgia and westward.

On rocky banks and cliffs. The sori of this species have a peculiar beauty on account of the star-shaped indusium, as it splits into fragments. Var.

_angusta_ is a form with very narrow fronds and pinnae. Highlands, New York.

The type grows in Middles.e.x County, Ma.s.s., but is rare.

(4) SMOOTH WOODSIA. _Woodsia glabella_

Fronds two to five inches high, very delicate, linear, pinnate. Pinnae remote at the base, roundish-ovate, very obtuse with a few crenate lobes.