Eaton Daniel Cady
Beautiful Ferns
PHEGOPTERIS ALPESTRIS, Mettenius.
Alpine Beech-Fern
Phegopteris alpestris: – Root-stock short and thick, erect or oblique; stalks sub-terminal, four to ten inches long, bearing a few brown spreading scales near the base; fronds one to two feet long, oblong-lanceolate, membranaceous, smooth, pinnate with delicately bi-pinnatifid deltoid-lanceolate pinnæ, the lower ones distant, and decreasing moderately; pinnules ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, doubly incised and toothed; sori small, rounded, naked, usually copious on all or all but the lowest pinnæ.
Phegopteris alpestris, Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 83; Phegopteris, p. 10.
Polypodium alpestre, Hoppe, “in Spreng. Syst. Veg., iv., par. ii., p. 320.” – Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., “ed. 2, p. 974;” ed. 3, p. 731. – Moore, Nat. Pr. Brit. Ferns, t. vii. – Hooker & Arnott, Brit. Fl., ed. 7, p. 582. – Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. vi.; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 251. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 311.
Aspidium alpestre, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 421. – Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 58, t. 60.
Asplenium alpestre, Mettenius, Asplenium, p. 198, t. vi., figs. 1-6.
Pseudathyrium alpestre, Newman, “Phytologist, iv., p. 370;” Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. iii., p. 200.
Athyrium alpestre, “Nylander;” Milde, Fil. Eu. & Atl., p. 53.
Polypodium rhæticum, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552, fide Schkuhr, l. c.; but Moore thinks the plant not the same.
Aspidium rhæticum, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 59. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 280.
Hab. – Among rocks at high elevations; on Lassen’s Peak, Mount Shasta, Pyramid Peak, Mount Rose, and other high points in the Sierra of California, Brewer, Lemmon, Muir; Cascade Mountains of British Columbia, Lyall. In the Alps and the mountains of Northern Europe; also in the Caucasus, and in Asia Minor.
Description. – The root-stock is rather short, but branching, and seems to form great entangled masses. The fronds stand in a crown or circle, rising from the end of the root-stock, which is made thick and heavy with the chaffy bases of former stalks. Mr. Lemmon writes thus: “It grows in a limited locality, so far as I know, near the summit of Mount Rose, near Webber Lake, and say at an elevation of 7,000 feet; lat. 39½° N. Fronds collected into a large mass four feet across, short at the circumference, in the centre three feet high; most of them fertile, and densely so, as in the specimen sent.”
The stalks are usually but a few (four to six) inches long, and in the dried specimens of a brownish straw-color, becoming nearly black at the base. They bear a few large ferruginous chaffy scales, and are deeply channelled and furrowed. The fibro-vascular system of the stalk is altered by contraction in drying, but apparently agrees with Dr. Milde’s description of Athyrium: “There are two oblong peripheric bundles in the base of the stalk, which, at the base of the lamina, are united into one of a horse-shoe shape by an arc parallel to the back of the stalk.” In the middle of a stalk from one of the California specimens I find two systems of ducts, one on each side of the stalk, and the two united by a curved and contorted border of firm blackish tissue (sclerenchyma).
The fronds are from one to two feet long, and from three to six inches wide. In general shape they are oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, and slightly narrowed at the base. The texture is softly membranaceous, and both surfaces are smooth. The primary pinnæ are numerous, the lower ones gradually farther apart: their shape is lanceolate from a broad base. They are usually twice pinnatifid, the pinnules being connected by a very narrow foliaceous border along the midribs. The ultimate segments are sharply toothed. The fruit-dots are very abundant, and usually are found on all the pinnæ. They are placed on the back of the free veinlets, and are apparently devoid of indusium; though Dr. Mettenius has discovered on young fronds an exceedingly delicate and fugitive indusium, resembling in some degree that of Asplenium § Athyrium. Accordingly, in his later work, he referred the species to the genus Asplenium, placing it next to A. Filix-fœmina. Milde, in his work on the ferns of Europe and Atlantis, sought to re-establish Athyrium as a genus, and placed this fern in it, saying “sori … rotundi, primum breviter oblongi indusio fugaci minutissimo ciliato instructi.” The spores are ovoid, and apparently covered with anastomosing raised lines. Those I have examined are fuscous-brown, but Milde says “sub-nigræ verrucosæ.”
There is a European var. flexilis, with very narrow, nearly sessile fronds, and the pinnæ often deflexed, which has not been observed in America.
Undoubtedly the greatest resemblance of this fern is to the lady-fern, Asplenium Filix-fœmina; but that species has a very well-developed indusium, while the minute objects delineated by Mettenius scarcely deserve the name.
The stalks are clearly continuous with the root-stock; and for this reason the plant is plainly not a Polypodium, whatever else it may finally be determined to be.
ASPIDIUM FRAGRANS, Swartz.
Fragrant Wood-Fern
Aspidium fragrans: – Root-stock short and stout, very chaffy, with ample bright-brown glossy scales, which also abound on the short clustered stalks, and extend, diminishing in size, nearly to the top of the frond; fronds rigid-membranaceous, glandular, aromatic, four to ten inches long, six to twenty-four lines wide, lanceolate, acuminate, narrowed from the middle to the base, bipinnate; pinnæ numerous, oblong-lanceolate; pinnules many, one to two lines long, oblong, obtuse, adnate by a decurrent base, pinnately incised with very minute crenated teeth, or in smaller fronds nearly entire, the back nearly hidden by the large thin imbricating indusia, which are orbicular with a narrow sinus, and more or less toothed and glandular around the margin.
Aspidium fragrans, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 51. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 253. – Hooker, in “Parry’s 2d Voy., App., p. 410;” Fl. Bor. Am., p. 410. – Ruprecht, Distr. Crypt. Vasc. Imp. Ross., p. 35. – Mettenius, Aspid., p. 56. – Gray, Manual, ed. 2, p. 598. – Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atlant., p. 117.
Polypodium fragrans, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1550.
Polystichum fragrans, Ledebour, “Fl. Ross., iv., p. 514.” – Maximowicz, Prim. Fl. Amur., p. 339.
Dryopteris fragrans, Schott, Gen. Fil., Observ. sub Polysticho.
Nephrodium fragrans, Richardson, “App. to Frankl. Journ., p. 753.” – Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil., t. lxx. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 122. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 275.
Dryopteris rubum idæum spirans, Ammann, “Ruth., p. 251.”
Hab. – In crevices of shaded cliffs, and on mossy rocks, especially near cascades and rivulets, from Northern New England to Wisconsin, and northward to Arctic America. Also in the Caucasus, and in Siberia, Mantchooria, and Kamtschatka. Special American localities are Mount Kineo, Maine, A. H. and C. E. Smith; at Berlin Falls, the “Alpine Cascade,” and the “Gulch,” all near the White Mountains, H. Willey; Mount Mansfield, Vermont, C. G. Pringle; Lake Avalanche, Adirondack Mountains, New York, C. H. Peck; Falls of St. Croix, Wisconsin, C. C. Parry, and on the Penokee Iron Range, in the same State, Lapham; Saguenay River, Canada, D. A. Watt. It is apparently more common farther north: Sitka, Iliuliuk, Unalaska, Arakamtchetchene, Kotzebue Bay, Igloolik, Rittenbenk in Greenland, and several other places, are recorded as stations for it.
Description. – The root-stock is rather stout, ascending or erect; and its apparent thickness is much increased by the persistent bases of stalks, which also give it a dense covering of broad bright-brown chaffy scales. The fronds, frequently to the number of six or eight, besides old and shrivelled ones, stand in a crown at the upper end of the root-stocks, resting on stalks from one to four inches long, which are usually very chaffy, the chaff continued along the rachis and midribs, though composed of smaller scales than those lower down. The fronds are from three or four to ten inches in length; and the greatest breadth, just above the middle, is from one-fifth to one-sixth of the length. The outline is exactly lanceolate, as the apex is acute, and the lower part gradually tapering to a somewhat narrowed base. The fronds are delicately, but densely, bipinnate. In a frond nine inches long there are about thirty primary pinnæ on each side, and in one of the middle pinnæ about ten oblong-ovate obtuse pinnately-incised pinnules on each side. The pinnules are from a line to two lines long, and are adnate to the secondary rachis by a more or less decurrent base. In large fronds the teeth of the pinnules are again crenately toothed; but in small specimens the pinnules themselves are entire, or but slightly toothed. Two sterile fronds collected by Professor M. W. Harrington, in Iliuliuk, Alaska, are broadly ovate-lanceolate in outline, and have acute primary pinnæ; and other specimens, some from Eastern Canada, collected by Mr. Watt, and some from Northern Wisconsin, collected by Mr. Lapham, are much slenderer and less scaly than usual. This is the var. β of Hooker. Usually the fronds are rather rigid, full-green above, a little paler beneath, and both surfaces, together with the rachis, especially the canal along the upper side of the rachis, are dotted with very minute pellucid pale amber-colored glands. The fronds commonly fruit very fully, even the lowest pinna bearing sporangia. The indusia are very large, thin, orbicular, with a narrow sinus, more or less ragged or toothed and gland-bearing at the margin, and are so dense as to overlap each other, and nearly conceal the back of the pinnules. The spores are ovoid, and have a minutely verrucose or warty surface.
The pleasant odor of the 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 illustration is taken from a plant collected by Mr. D. A. Watt on the Saguenay River, in Canada.
ASPIDIUM GOLDIANUM, Hooker.
Goldie’s Wood-Fern
Aspidium Goldianum: – Root-stock stout, ascending, chaffy; stalks about a foot long, chaffy at the base with large ovate-acuminate ferruginous or deep-lustrous-brown scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two and a half feet long, broadly ovate, or the fertile ones oblong-ovate, chartaceo-membranaceous, nearly smooth, bright-green above, a little paler beneath, pinnate; pinnæ broadly lanceolate, five to eight inches long, one to two and a half broad, usually, especially the lowest ones, narrower at the base than in the middle, pinnatifid almost to the midrib; segments numerous, oblong-linear, often slightly falcate, crenate, or serrate with sharp incurved teeth; veins free, mostly with three veinlets, the lowest superior veinlets bearing near their base the large sori very near the midvein; indusium large, flat, smooth, orbicular with a narrow sinus.
Aspidium Goldianum, Hooker, in Goldie’s Acc. of rare Canad. Pl. in Edinb. Phil. Journ., vi., p. 333; Fl. Am. – Bor., ii., p. 260. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495. – Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 598, ed. v., p. 666. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspid., p. 56. – Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 95, t. xxxiv.
Nephrodium Goldianum, Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil. t. cii. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 121. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272.
Lastrea Goldiana, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76. – Lawson, in Canad. Nat. i., p. 282.
Dryopteris Goldiana, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 631.
Aspidium Filix-mas, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662.
Hab. – Deep, rocky woods, from Canada and Maine to Indiana, Virginia and Kentucky. It is also named in local catalogues of the flora of Wisconsin and Kansas. Not known in the Old World.
Description: – The root-stock is creeping or ascending, several inches long, and nearly an inch thick. This thickness is made up, in considerable part, by the adherent bases of old stalks; the stalks being perfectly continuous with the root-stock, and so much crowded as to overlap each other. When fresh the root-stock is fleshy, and a longitudinal section of it shows that its substance passes so gradually into that of the stalk-bases, that no point of separation or distinction between the two can be selected. This kind of root-stock is found also in Aspidium spinulosum and its allies, in A. Filix-mas, A. cristatum, A. marginale, A. Nevadense, A. fragrans, and A. rigidum, and in very many exotic species, and it is very unlike the root-stocks of A. Thelypteris, A. Noveboracense, and A. unitum, species which have been already described and figured in the present work. The parenchymatous portion of the root-stock is loaded with starch in very minute grains, as may be easily proved by adding a drop of alcoholic solution of iodine to a thin slice of the root-stock placed under a microscope, when the grains will be presently seen to turn blue, the recognized sign of starch. This abundance of nutritive material in the root-stock enables it to send up a fine circle of large fronds in the proper season of the year.
The stalks are from nine to fifteen inches long, rather stout, green when living, but straw-color when dried for the herbarium, in which condition they are furrowed in front and along the two sides. At the base they are covered with large ovate-acuminate brown or sometimes dark and shining scales. Mixed in with these are smaller and narrower chaffy scales, which also are found along the whole length of the stalk and the rachis. The cross-section of the stalk shows two rather large roundish fibro-vascular bundles on the anterior side, and three, the middle one largest, at the back.
Several fronds are usually seen growing from a root-stock, those produced early in the season commonly sterile, and shorter than the others. The full-grown and fertile fronds are often two feet or two and a half feet long, and about one foot broad. The general outline is oblong-ovate, the lowest pinnæ being scarcely, if at all, shorter than those in the middle of the frond. There are usually about eight or ten full-sized pinnæ each side of the rachis, besides the gradually diminishing pinnæ near the acute pinnatifid apex. The larger pinnæ are from five to eight inches long, the middle ones an inch or an inch and a half wide, but the lowest ones two inches and a half broad. The greatest breadth of the pinnæ is usually near the middle or even a little above the middle, so that they are slightly narrowed towards the base; and in this character lies one of the readiest distinctions between this fern and those large forms of A. cristatum, which have occasionally been mistaken for A. Goldianum; for in that other species the greatest breadth of the pinnæ is uniformly at the base.
The segments of the pinnæ are from fifteen to twenty each side the midrib: the incisions do not extend quite to the midrib, so that the latter is narrowly winged, and the pinnæ are pinnatifid rather than pinnate. The segments are from nine to eighteen lines long, and about three lines wide: they are set rather obliquely on the midrib, and are often slightly curved upwards, or falcate. They are obtuse or somewhat acute, and have the edges crenate, or more or less distinctly serrate with sharp incurved teeth.
The veins are free, and are pinnately forked into from three to five slender oblique veinlets, of which the lowest one on the upper side is the longest, and bears a fruit-dot near its base. The fruit-dots are seldom or never found on the two or three lowest pinnæ, but on the rest they are arranged in a row each side the midveins of the segments, and much nearer the midveins than the margins. There are in all from ten to twenty to a segment.
The indusia are larger than in most of the related species, flat, perfectly smooth, orbicular with a very narrow sinus, and slightly erose-crenulate on the margin. In the second edition of Gray’s Manual it is said that the indusium is “often orbicular without a distinct sinus, as in Polystichum;” and it is sometimes difficult to see the sinus, but I think it is rather because the sides of it overlap than because there is none. The sporangia have a ring of from fifteen to twenty articulations. The spores are ovoid, and somewhat roughened on the surface.
This fern is one of the very finest and largest of the species of the Eastern States, being surpassed in these respects only by the osmundas and the ostrich-fern. The fronds are smooth, deep-green in color, slightly paler beneath, and of a rather firm papery texture. Unlike A. Filix-mas and A. cristatum the fronds wither in the fall of the year, and are not “half-evergreen.”