The Fern Lover's Companion Part 15

CLIMBING FERN. HARTFORD FERN

_Lygdium palmatum_

"And where upon the meadow's breast The shadow of the thicket lies."

BRYANT.

Fronds slender, climbing or twining, three to five feet long. The lower pinnae (frondlets) sterile, roundish, five to seven lobed, distant in pairs with simple veins; the upper fertile, contracted, several times forked, forming a terminal panicle; the ultimate segments crowded, and bearing the sporangia, which are similar to those of curly gra.s.s, and fixed to a veinlet by the inner side next the base, one or rarely two covered by each indusium. (From the Greek meaning like a willow twig [pliant], alluding to the flexible stipes.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Climbing Fern. _LyG.o.dium palmatum_]

Fifty years ago this beautiful fern was more common than at present. There was a considerable colony in a low, alluvial meadow thicket at North Hadley, Ma.s.s., not far from Mt. Toby, where we collected it freely in 1872.

Many used to decorate their homes with its handsome sprays, draping it gracefully over mirrors and pictures. It was known locally as the Hartford fern. Greedy spoilers ruthlessly robbed its colonies and it became scarce, at least in the Mt. Toby region. In Connecticut a law was enacted in 1867 for its protection and with good results. But as Mr. C.A. Weatherby states in the American Fern Journal (Vol. II, No. 4), the encroachments of tillage (mainly of tobacco, which likes the same soil), are forcing it from its cherished haunts, thus jeopardizing its survival. Doubtless an aggressive agriculture is in part responsible for its scarcity in the more northern locality. It is still found here and there in New England, New York and New Jersey; also in Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida, but is nowhere common.

The fertile portion dies when the spores mature, but the sterile frondlets remain green through the winter. A handsome species for the fernery in the house or out of doors.

IV

ADDER'S TONGUE FAMILY

_OPHIOGLOSSaCEae_

Plants more or less fern-like consisting of a stem with a single leaf. In _Ophioglossum_ the leaf or sterile segment is entire, the veins reticulated and the sporangia in a simple spike. In _Botrchium_ the sterile segment is more or less incised, the veins free, and the sori in a panicle or compound or rarely simple spike. Sporangia naked, opening by a transverse slit.

Spores copious, sulphur-yellow.

ADDER'S TONGUE. _Ophioglossum vulgatum_

Rootstock erect, fleshy. Stem simple, two to ten inches high, bearing one smooth, entire leaf about midway, and a terminal spike embracing the sporangia, coherent in two ranks on its edges. (Generic name from the Greek meaning the tongue of a snake, in allusion to the narrow spike of the sporangia.)

In moist meadows or rarely on dry slopes. "Overlooked rather than rare."

New England states and in general widely distributed. July. Often grows in company with the ragged orchis. The ancient ointment known as "adder's speare ointment" had the adder's tongue leaves as a chief ingredient, and is said to be still used for wounds in English villages.

"For them that are with newts or snakes or adders stung, He seeketh out a herb that's called adder's tongue."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Adder's Tongue. _Ophioglossum vulgatum_]

Var. _minus_, smaller; fronds often in pairs. The sterile segment yellowish-green, attached usually much below the middle of the plant. Sandy ground, New Hampshire to New Jersey.

Var. _Engelmanni_. (Given specific rank in Gray.) Has the sterile segment thicker and cuspidate, the stipe slender and the secondary veins forming a fine network within the meshes of the princ.i.p.al ones. Virginia and westward.

Var. _arenarium_. (From the Latin, _arena_, meaning sand, being found in a sandy soil.) Probably a depauperate form of _Ophioglossum vulgatum_ and about half as large. A colony of these ferns was discovered growing in poor soil at Holly Beach, New Jersey.

KEY TO THE GRAPE FERNS

(_Botrchium_)

Plant large, fruiting in June, sterile part much divided: Rattlesnake Fern.

Plant smaller: Fruiting in autumn, sterile part long-stalked, triangular.

Common Grape Fern.

Fruiting in summer: Plant fleshy, sterile part mostly with lunate segments.

Moonwort.

Plant less fleshy, segments not lunate: Sterile part short-stalked above the middle of the stem.

Matricary Fern.

Sterile part stalked usually below middle of stem.

Little Grape Fern.

Sterile part sessile near the top of the stem.

Lance-leaved Grape Fern.

GRAPE FERNS

_Botrchium_

Rootstock very short, erect with cl.u.s.tered fleshy roots; the base of the sheathed stalk containing the bud for the next year's frond. Fertile frond one to three pinnate, the contracted divisions bearing a double row of sessile, naked, globular sporangia, opening transversely into two valves.

Sterile segment of the frond ternately or pinnately divided or compound.

Veins free. Spores copious, sulphur yellow. (The name in Greek means a cl.u.s.ter of grapes, alluding to the grape-like cl.u.s.ters of the sporangia.)

(1) MOONWORT. _Botrchium Lunaria_

Very fleshy, three to ten inches high, sterile segment subsessile, borne near the middle of the plant, oblong, simple pinnate with three to eight pairs of lunate or fan-shaped divisions, obtusely crenate, the veins repeatedly forking; fertile segment panicled, two to three pinnate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moonwort _Botrychium Lunaria_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Moonwort. _Botrychium Lunaria_. Details]

The moonwort was formerly a.s.sociated with many superst.i.tions and was reputed to open all locks at a mere touch, and to unshoe all horses that trod upon it. "Unshoe the horse" was one of the names given to it by the country people.

"Horses that feeding on the gra.s.sy hills, Tread upon moonwort with their hollow heels, Though lately shod, at night go barefoot home Their maister musing where their shoes be gone."

In dry pastures, Lake Superior and northward, but rare in the United States. Willoughby, Vt., where the author found a single plant in 1904, and St. Johnsbury, Vt. Also New York, Michigan and westward.

In England said to be local rather than rare. Sometimes called Lunary.

"Then sprinkled she the juice of rue With nine drops of the midnight dew From Lunary distilling."

DRAYTON.

(2) LITTLE GRAPE FERN. _Botrychium simplex_

Fronds two to four inches high, very variable. Sterile segment short-petioled, usually near the middle, simple and roundish or pinnately three to seven lobed. Veins all forking from the base. Fertile segments simple or one to two pinnate, apex of both segments erect in the bud.

In moist woods and fields, Canada to Maryland and westward; Conway and Plainfield, Ma.s.s., Berlin and Litchfield, Conn. Rare. According to Pringle it is "abundantly scattered over Vermont, its habitat usually poor soil, especially knolls of hill pastures." May or June.