Beautiful Ferns

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.