Beautiful Ferns

The fronds are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, usually narrowed a little, or even conspicuously narrowed, at the base, and acute or acuminate at the apex. They are of a full herbaceous green above, a little paler beneath, and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or, in tropical forms, of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is from one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally seen; and one very fine example of var. paleaceum, collected in Chiapas, Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a half long, exclusive of the stalk.

The pinnæ are sometimes very numerous; as many as forty on each side have been counted on very large fronds, but the number is more commonly less than twenty. They are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a broad base to a slender point; in the common form their average breadth at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in var. incisum they are often fully two inches broad at the base. Their length is from three or four inches in the common form to six or seven inches in the largest specimens I have seen. The midrib of the pinnæ is always more or less winged, so that the pinnæ may be said to be pinnatifid, and the segments to be connected by a narrow wing.

The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties; in the type they are very close together, oblong, with a rounded apex, and not very deeply toothed: in var. paleaceum they are also closely-placed, and oblong, but mostly truncate at the apex; and in var. incisum they are much larger and less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and incised with toothed lobes along the sides.

The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided into from two to five veinlets. The sori are rather large, placed nearer the midvein than the margin, and are rarely produced towards the apex of the segments.

The indusium is orbicular-reniform, and almost always smooth. Its edges are turned downward, enclosing the sporangia, when they are young, and sometimes this convexity is permanent. Rarely the sinus is so deep that the indusium at last becomes divided. The spores are ovoid, and have a muricately roughened surface.

The rhizomes have been used for ages as an anthelmintic, but probably have no greater virtue in this direction than those of many other common species.

PELLÆA TERNIFOLIA, Link.

Trifoliate Cliff-Brake

Pellæa ternifolia: – Root-stock short, thick, nodose, chaffy with very narrow dark-brown scales; stalks clustered, purplish-black and polished, three to six inches long; fronds as long as or longer than the stalks, oblong-linear; pinnæ from four to fifteen pairs, all but a few of the highest ones deeply tripartite; segments elongated-oval or linear-obovate, sub-coriaceous, somewhat glaucous beneath, green above, slightly mucronate, the middle one in large fronds indistinctly petiolulate; fertile ones with the edges much recurved; involucre broad, the edge only membranaceous.

Pellæa ternifolia, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59. – Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 129. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., i., p. 142; Fil. Exot., t. xv. – Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 118. – Eaton, Ferns of the Southwest, p. 321.

Pteris ternifolia, Cavanilles, “Præl. 1801, No. 657.” – Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil., t. 126.

Platyloma ternifolium, J. Smith. – Brackenridge, Fil. U. S. Ex. Exped., p. 94.

Allosorus ternifolius, Kunze, in Linnæa, xxiii., p. 220.

Pteris subverticillata, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 103. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375.

Hab. – Texas, Trécul, No. 1334, according to Fournier. New Mexico, Wright, according to Hooker in Filices Exoticæ. The only specimens from Texas which I have of this species were collected by Dr. Sutton Hayes, near the headwaters of the Rio Colorado of Texas. It is a common Mexican species; it is found as far South as Peru, and reap pears in the Hawaiian Islands.

Description: – This belongs to the same group of species as P. Wrightiana, brachyptera and Ornithopus. It has the same nodose and scaly root-stock, dark and polished stalk, glaucescent frond and mucronulate pinnules. In Mexico, South America and the Hawaiian Islands it never occurs with more than trifoliolate pinnules, and this is perhaps the best reason for considering P. Wrightiana a distinct species. The pinnæ are tripartite rather than trifoliolate, while in the other fern just referred to, when trifoliolate the odd pinnule is more distinct and usually stalked, a distinction indicated by Hooker, but for which I am more indebted to the accurate discrimination of Mr. Faxon. In more southern localities the fronds are considerably larger than Dr. Hayes’ specimens, and the segments of the pinnæ ampler. In very dry seasons the pinnæ are considerably deflexed. The spores are trivittate as in the related species.

PELLÆA ATROPURPUREA, Link.

Clayton’s Cliff-Brake

Pellæa atropurpurea: – Root-stock short, knotted, chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft cinnamon-brown scales; stalks four to eight inches high, terete, wiry, dark-purple or reddish-black, polished or more or less pubescent with paleaceous hairs; fronds six to twelve inches long, ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, evergreen, sub-coriaceous, pinnate, usually twice pinnate near the base; rachises smooth or hairy; pinnæ four to twelve pairs, the lower ones long-stalked, and divided into five to nine pinnules; upper pinnæ and the pinnules nearly sessile; oval to linear-oblong, at the base truncate or sub-cordate or sometimes hastate, obtuse or obtusely mucronulate, terminal ones longest; veins obscure, mostly twice forked; involucre rather broad, formed of the continuously recurved margin, paler and membranaceous on the edge, not fully covering the ripened sporangia.

Pellæa atropurpurea, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59. – Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 129. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138. – Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 589; Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 660; Ferns of the South-West, p. 319. – Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 147. – Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 119. – Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 52, t. 12.

Pteris atropurpurea, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1534. – Michaux, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 261. – Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 106. – Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 93, t. 101. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375. – Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 668.

Platyloma atropurpureum, J. Smith. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 488.

Allosorus atropurpureus, Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 86; Linnæa, xxiii., p. 218. – Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 591. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.

Pellæa mucronata, Fée, 9me Mém., p. 8.

Pellæa glabella, Mettenius & Kuhn, in Linnæa, xxxvi., p. 87.

Pteris spiculata, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 92, t. 100.

Pteris Adianti facie, caule ramulis petiolisque politiore nitore nigricantibus, etc., Gronovius, Fl. Virginica, ed. i., p. 197.

Hab. – Crevices of shaded calcareous rocks; from Canada to the Rocky Mountains of British America, and southward to Alabama, Arkansas, Indian Territory and Arizona. It has been found in several parts of Mexico, and even in South America (“Andes of Mecoya, Pearce,” according to Synopsis Filicum). It was collected by John Clayton about 1736, “on the shore of the river Rappahannock in a shady place by the root of a juniper near the promontory called Point Lookout,” and I take pleasure in giving it an English name in his honor.

Description: – The root-stock of this fern is rather short, usually somewhat nodose, and densely chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft bright-brown scales, which in the specimens examined are destitute of midnerve.

The stalks are rigid and wiry, terete, nearly black in color, but with a slight reddish tinge, and usually more or less pubescent with very narrow chaffy hairs, which are often more abundant and harsher along the rachises, making them almost hirsute. Pellæa glabella was founded on specimens from Missouri and the North-West, which had the stalk perfectly smooth, and the chaff of the root-stock a trifle wider than usual. The section of the stalk shows a single U-shaped fibro-vascular bundle, and a strong outer sclerenchymatous sheath.

The fronds are developed late in the Spring, and remain green through the next Winter. They are almost coriaceous in texture, smooth and dark-bluish-green above, paler, and sometimes slightly chaffy beneath. They are from a few inches to about a foot in length, and vary in outline from ovate to oblong-lanceolate. In seedling plants the earliest fronds are round-cordate, the next cordate-ovate, and then follow trifoliate, pinnate, and finally mature bipinnate fronds. The largest fronds have about five pairs of compound pinnæ, each with from three to eleven pinnules, and above these are from four to six pairs of simple pinnæ, besides the terminal one, which is often the longest of all.

The pinnules and the simple pinnæ of the sterile fronds are commonly oval, and not more than half an inch long, but those of the fertile fronds are narrower and longer, sometimes nearly two inches long. The base is either truncate or slightly cordate; sometimes where there is a transition from compound to simple pinnæ, a pinna will be found conspicuously auricled on both sides, or on the upper side only. Forked pinnules are occasionally seen.

The margin is continuously recurved to form a rather broad involucre, and the very edge is somewhat thinner and whiter. The veins are pinnately arranged on both sides of the midvein, and fork about twice before reaching the margin. The upper part of the veinlets is covered with sporangia, which as they ripen push out from beneath the involucre. The spores are obscurely tetrahedral and trivittate, as in the other species of the genus.

This fern very often grows in company with Camptosorus rhizophyllus, and its root-stock is often hidden beneath mosses of the genus Anomodon: it takes kindly to cultivation, especially if it be planted in the crevices of calcareous rock-work. It may occur on other than calcareous rock, but I have never seen it on either granite, sandstone or basalt.

Names for varieties of this species have been proposed by Pursh, and by Fournier, but the characters assigned do not seem sufficiently distinctive.

PELLÆA GRACILIS, Hooker.

Slender Cliff-Brake

Pellæa gracilis: – Root-stock slender, creeping, cord-like, scantily furnished with little ovate appressed scales; stalks scattered, slender, a span long or less, brownish-stramineous, somewhat shining, darker and slightly chaffy at the base; fronds two to four inches long, thin and tender, smooth, ovate or ovate-oblong, pinnate; pinnæ few, the lower two to four pairs once or twice pinnatifid, the uppermost simple; segments of the sterile fronds adnate-decurrent, roundish-obovate, crenately lobed and toothed; those of the taller fertile fronds lanceolate or linear-oblong, and more distinct, entire or auricled, terminal ones longest; veins rather distant, mostly once forked; involucre broad and continuous, delicately membranaceous.

Pellæa gracilis, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138, t. cxxxiii, B. – Eaton, in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 659; Ferns of the South-West, p. 319. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 145. – Porter & Coulter, Syn. Fl. Colorado, p. 153.

Pteris gracilis, Michaux, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 262. – Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 99. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 376. – Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 668. – Hooker, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 264.

Allosorus gracilis, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 153. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 486. – Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 624; ed. ii., p. 591, t. ix. – Parry, in Owen’s Geol. Surv. of Wisconsin, etc., p. 621. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.

Cheilanthes gracilis, Kaulfuss, Enum. Fil., p. 209.

Pteris Stelleri, Gmelin, “Nov. Com. Petrop., xii., p. 519, t. 12, f. 1.”

Allosorus Stelleri, Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. in Imp. Ross., p. 47. – Ledebour, Fl. Ross., iv., p. 526. – Moore, Ind. Fil., p. 46. – Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272.

Allosorus minutus & Pteris minuta, Turczaninow, fide Moore.

Hab. – Crevices of damp and shaded calcareous rocks, especially in deep glens; Labrador, Butler, to British Columbia, and southward to Iowa, Parry, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Also in Colorado, near Breckinridge City, Brandegee. Siberia, Tibet and the Himalayas. It is found in Sunderland, Massachusetts; at Trenton Falls, Chittenango Falls, and other deep glens in Central New York; in Lycoming and Sullivan Counties, Pennsylvania, and in other similar places in Vermont, Michigan, etc., but is by no means a common plant.

Description: – This is the most delicate of all the Pellæas, and has fronds a good deal like those of Cryptogramme acrostichoides, but tenderer, and with sub-marginal fructification. The root-stock is very slender, scarcely more than half a line in thickness, and sometimes two or three inches long. It is so hidden in the crevices of the rocks that it is seldom secured by collectors. The scales are minute, appressed to the root-stock, and almost filmy in their delicacy.

The stalks are scattered along the root-stock, and are generally about five or six inches long, those of the fertile fronds longer, stouter and of a darker color than the others. They are smooth and somewhat polished, but lighter in color and far more tender in consistency than in most of our other species of this genus.

The fertile and the sterile fronds are unlike, though both are very delicately membranaceous, and pinnate with once or twice pinnatifid pinnæ. The rachis is not winged in its lower half, except in very small fronds, but above the middle it is narrowly winged, as are also its divisions. The lowest one or two pairs of pinnæ are twice pinnatifid in the largest specimens, but more commonly but once pinnatifid. In the sterile fronds the segments of the pinnæ are very plainly adnate to the secondary midrib, and are roundish or roundish-obovate in shape. They are from three to six lines long and about two-thirds as broad. Their margin is more or less lobed and crenately toothed. In the fertile fronds the segments are more distinct, longer and narrower, measuring often six to ten lines in length and one or two in width. The terminal pinna of the frond and the terminal segments of the pinnæ are considerably longer than the others. The veins are conspicuous, and distant, much more so than in our other species of Pellæa. They fork once about midway between the midvein and the margin, and sometimes, especially in fertile fronds, a second time just within the margin.

The involucre is continuous, broad, and even more delicate than the frond itself. The sporangia are comparatively scanty, and are fully covered by the involucre. The spores are spheroid-tetrahedral and obscurely trivittate.

Mr. Moore and some other authors are disposed to insist on the right of priority belonging to the specific name Stelleri. But the name gracilis has been used by nearly every writer on American Ferns since the time of Michaux, and will most probably be kept up rather than the other.

It should be noted that Ruprecht considered his Allosorus Stelleri to be distinct from our plant, and mentions several points of difference in his work on the Distribution of Vascular Cryptogamia in the Russian Empire.

The figure is taken from specimens collected in Sunderland, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, by the late Rev. David Peck.

ASPIDIUM MARGINALE, Swartz.

Evergreen Wood-Fern

Aspidium marginale: – Root-stock ascending, stout, shaggy with long shining-brown chaffy scales; stalks rather stout, a few inches to a foot long, more or less chaffy with shining scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two feet long, evergreen, sub-coriaceous, ovate-lanceolate, scarcely narrowed at the base, pinnate or sub-bipinnate; pinnæ almost sessile, the lowest ones broadest, unequally triangular-lanceolate, the middle ones lanceolate-acuminate, slightly broader above the base; pinnules or segments smooth and dark-bluish-green above, paler and sometimes slightly chaffy beneath, adnate to the narrowly winged secondary rachis, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, often sub-falcate, varying from crenately-toothed to pinnately-lobed with crenulate lobes, obtuse or sub-acute, those next the main rachis sometimes distinct, short-stalked, sub-cordate at the base and with rounded auricles; veins free, forked or pinnately branched into from two to five curved and usually conspicuous veinlets; sori rather large, placed close to the margin of the segments; the orbicular-reniform indusia firm in texture, convex, smooth, often lead colored.

Aspidium marginale, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 50. – Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 195, t. 45, b.– Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 259. – Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662. – Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 107. – Hooker, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 160. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495. – Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 598. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspidium, p. 55. – Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 595. – Robinson, Ferns of Essex Co., in Bull. Essex Inst., vii., No. 3, p. 50. – Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 97, t. xxxv. – Davenport, Catal., p. 32.

Polypodium marginale, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552.

Nephrodium marginale, Michaux, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 267. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 122. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 273.

Lastrea marginalis, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 77. – J. Smith, Ferns, Brit. and Foreign, p. 157. – Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 281.

Dryopteris marginalis, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 632. – Darlington, Fl. Cestrica, ed. iii., p. 396.

Hab. – Rocky hill-sides in rich woods, especially where black leaf-mold has gathered between masses of rock; one of our most abundant and characteristic ferns, confined to North America, but extending from New Brunswick to Central Alabama, Professor Eugene A. Smith; westward to Arkansas, Professor F. L. Harvey; Wisconsin, Parry, T. J. Hale; and brought from the Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains of British America by Drummond.

Description: – Professor Robinson has remarked of this species: – “This comes nearer being a tree fern than any other of our species; the caudex, covered by the bases of fronds of previous seasons, sometimes resting on bare rocks for four or five inches without roots or fronds.” The root-stock is much like that of A. Filix-mas, being very stout-closely covered with persistent stalk-bases and very chaffy. The chaff really grows mainly on the bases of the stalks, or covers the closely coiled buds which crown the root-stock. It is composed of shining ferruginous-brown thin lanceolate acuminate scales fully an inch in length, and destitute of a thickened midnerve. The fronds grow in elegant crowns from the apex of the root-stock, some six or eight or perhaps ten to a plant. The stalks vary in length, but are seldom more than a foot long. They are rather stout, round, but with a slight furrow in front, commonly reddish-brown in color, fading when dry to straw-color, and contain five or seven roundish fibro-vascular bundles, of which the two anterior ones are largest, and the next two the smallest.

The outline of the fronds is ovate-lanceolate, varying to oblong-lanceolate. The frond is commonly not quite so wide at the base as in the middle, though in small specimens the base is often the widest. The texture is thicker than in any other of our Wood-ferns, and the fronds are fairly evergreen, not withering until the next year’s fronds begin to uncoil. In cutting, the fronds vary from pinnate, with pinnatifid pinnæ and short nearly entire lobes, to twice pinnate, with pinnately-lobed segments. In the example selected for our plate the pinnules are oblong, obtuse and crenulate, or at most, crenately-toothed. Other, and perhaps no larger, fronds will have most of the pinnules twice or even thrice as long as these, ovate-lanceolate and pointed, narrowed to a sub-cordate and obscurely-stalked base, and deeply pinnately-lobed. This is var. elegans of Professor Robinson. Professor Lawson has a var. Traillæ, which has “very large bipinnate fronds, all the pinnules pinnatifid.” A very common form noticed by Mr. L. M. Underwood in Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, has fronds only four or five inches long, the lower pinnæ only pinnatifid and the upper ones lobed, the sori mostly solitary on the lobes.

The veins and veinlets of the frond are very distinct, being marked by depressions in the upper surface in the living fronds, and visible as dark lines in the dried specimens. The veins fork near the midvein; the upper branch may be fertile at its tip; the lower branch is either simple, or forks a second, and perhaps a third time. All the veinlets are curved. On account of the venation Presl referred this plant to his section Arthrobotrys.

The sori are close to the margin of the lobes, and vary from one to twelve to a lobe. They are very large and prominent, and have firm lead-colored orbicular-reniform indusia, which are slightly incurved round the edge, and depressed at the sinus. As the fronds mature the indusia become brownish. The spores are ovoid-reniform and have a narrow crenulate wing.

CAMPTOSORUS RHIZOPHYLLUS, Link.

Walking-Leaf

Camptosorus rhizophyllus: – Root-stock short, creeping or ascending; stalks tufted, slender, flaccid, green, but becoming brown near the base; fronds a few inches to a foot long, sub-coriaceous, evergreen, smooth, gradually narrowed from a deeply cordate and auricled base to a long and very slender prolongation, decumbent and often rooting at the end; veins reticulated near the midrib, and having free apices along the margin; sori elongated, variously placed on either side of the veins, often face to face in pairs, or extending around the upper part of the meshes; indusium delicate.

Camptosorus rhizophyllus, Link, Hort. Berol., ii., p. 69; Fil. Sp. Hort. Berol., p. 83. – Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 121, t. 4, fig. 8. – Hooker, Gen. Fil., t. 57, C; Fil. Exot., t. 85. – Gray, Manual. – Darlington, Flora Cestr., ed. iii., p. 393. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 67, t. 5, fig. 6.

Asplenium rhizophyllum, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1536. – Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 74. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 305. – Michaux, Fl. Bor. Am., ii., p. 264. – Bigelow, Fl. Boston.

Antigramma rhizophylla, J. Smith, in Hook. Journ. Bot., iv., p. 176; Ferns, British and Foreign, p. 226. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 494, t. 159 (Asplenium).

Scolopendrium rhizophyllum, Endlicher, Gen. Pl., Suppl. i., p. 1348. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 4. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 248.

Hab. – On mossy rocks, especially limestone. Not uncommon from Canada to Virginia and Alabama, and westward to Wisconsin and Kansas. It occurs in many places in Western New England, but is rare to the east. It has lately been found a few miles from Boston; but there is a doubt whether the station is truly natural.

Description. – The walking-leaf is usually found in patches of considerable extent. It seems to prefer mossy calcareous rocks, and the finest specimens are usually firmly rooted in the crevices. In Cheshire, Connecticut, it grows freely on moist cliffs of sandstone bordering a deep ravine; and in Orange, in the same State, it is found on scattered ledges of serpentine. The root-stock is very short, but creeping: it bears a few dark-fuscous scales, and is covered with the remains of decayed stalks. A few fronds grow from the end of the root-stock, and are supported on slender herbaceous stems a few inches long. A transverse section of the lower part of the stalk is semicircular, and shows a very slender triangular central thread of dark sclerenchyma, with two somewhat roundish fibro-vascular bundles close beneath or behind it. A section higher up shows that the stalk is there narrowly winged on each side, and the two fibro-vascular bundles have coalesced into one of a roundish-triangular shape. The frond is long and narrow, and rarely rises erect, but usually is decumbent or reclined in position.

The wings of the stalk widen out into a wedge-shaped base, which is sunken in a sinus between two basal auricles of the frond. These auricles are scantily developed in small fronds; but in larger ones they are more or less prominent, making the base of the frond either cordate or hastate. In specimens from Cheshire, Connecticut, and in some from Indiana, the auricles are drawn out into slender points, in one instance fully four inches long. The fronds are deep-green in color, and sub-coriaceous in texture. The fronds of mature plants are from six to twelve, or even fifteen, inches long; and their greatest width, measured just above the auricles, is about one-twelfth of the length, or from six to fifteen lines. The midrib is a little paler than the rest of the frond, and is rather prominent on the under surface. The margin of the frond is gently undulating or entire, rarely incised.2 The upper part of the frond is scarcely wider than the stalk, and commonly produces a proliferous bud at the apex, where it very frequently takes root, and develops a new plant. In this way a single plant in a favorable position will become a whole colony in a few years’ time.