How to Know the Ferns
A GUIDE
TO THE NAMES, HAUNTS, AND HABITS OF
OUR COMMON FERNS
By
Frances Theodora Parsons
Author of "How to Know the Wild Flowers,"
"According to Season," etc.
Illustrated by
Marion Satterlee and Alice Josephine Smith
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1915
Copyright, 1899, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
TO
J. R. P.
"If it were required to know the position of the fruit-dots or the character of the indusium, nothing could be easier than to ascertain it; but if it is required that you be affected by ferns, that they amount to anything, signify anything to you, that they be another sacred scripture and revelation to you, helping to redeem your life, this end is not so easily accomplished."
—Thoreau
PREFACE
Since the publication, six years ago, of "How to Know the Wild Flowers," I have received such convincing testimony of the eagerness of nature-lovers of all ages and conditions to familiarize themselves with the inhabitants of our woods and fields, and so many assurances of the joy which such a familiarity affords, that I have prepared this companion volume on "How to Know the Ferns." It has been my experience that the world of delight which opens before us when we are admitted into some sort of intimacy with our companions other than human is enlarged with each new society into which we win our way.
It seems strange that the abundance of ferns everywhere has not aroused more curiosity as to their names, haunts, and habits. Add to this abundance the incentive to their study afforded by the fact that owing to the comparatively small number of species we can familiarize ourselves with a large proportion of our native ferns during a single summer, and it is still more surprising that so few efforts have been made to bring them within easy reach of the public.
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the many books on our native ferns which I have consulted, but more especially to Gray's "Manual," to Eaton's "Ferns of North America," to the "Illustrated Flora" of Messrs. Britton and Brown, to Mr. Underwood's "Our Native Ferns," to Mr. Williamson's "Ferns of Kentucky," to Mr. Dodge's "Ferns and Fern Allies of New England," and to that excellent little quarterly, which I recommend heartily to all fern-lovers, the "Fern Bulletin," edited by Mr. Willard Clute, of Binghamton, N. Y.
To the State Botanist, Dr. Charles H. Peck, who has kindly read the proof-sheets of this book, I am indebted for many suggestions; also to Mr. Arthur G. Clement, of the University of the State of New York.
To Miss Marion Satterlee thanks are due not only for many suggestions, but also for the descriptions of the Woodwardias.
The pen-and-ink illustrations are all from original drawings by Miss Satterlee and Miss Alice Josephine Smith. The photographs have been furnished by Miss Murray Ledyard, Miss Madeline Smith, and Mr. Augustus Pruyn.
In almost all cases I have followed the nomenclature of Gray's "Manual" as being the one which would be familiar to the majority of my readers, giving in parentheses that used in the "Illustrated Flora" of Messrs. Britton and Brown.
Frances Theodora Parsons
Albany, March 6, 1899
"The more thou learnest to know and to enjoy, the more full and complete will be for thee the delight of living."
CONTENTS
LIST OF PLATES
⁂ The actual sizes of ferns are not given in the illustrations. For this information see the corresponding description.
intermedium, 165 XXVIII. Boott's Shield Fern, Aspidium Boottii, 167 XXIX. Crested Shield Fern, Aspidium cristatum, 169 XXX. Clinton's Wood Fern, Aspidium cristatum, var.
Clintonianum, 171 XXXI. Goldie's Fern, Aspidium Goldianum, 173 XXXII. Evergreen Wood Fern, Aspidium marginale, 175 XXXIII. Fragrant Shield Fern, Aspidium fragrans, 179 XXXIV. Braun's Holly Fern, Aspidium aculeatum, var.
Braunii, 183 XXXV. Broad Beech Fern, Phegopteris hexagonoptera, 189 XXXVI. Oak Fern, Phegopteris Dryopteris, 191 XXXVII. Bulblet Bladder Fern, Cystopteris bulbifera, 195 XXXVIII. Fragile Bladder Fern, Cystopteris fragilis, 197 XXXIX. Rusty Woodsia, Woodsia Ilvensis, 199 XL. Blunt-lobed Woodsia, Woodsia obtusa, 201 XLI. Northern Woodsia, Woodsia hyperborea, 205 XLII. Smooth Woodsia, Woodsia glabella, 207
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith. Frontispiece
Page New York Fern xvi "The greatest charm the ferns possess is that of their surroundings"
From a photograph by Mr. Augustus Pruyn. 12
Fiddleheads 18 Fragile Bladder Fern 19 Crested Shield Fern 20 Purple Cliff Brake 22 Ternate Grape Fern 24 Evergreen Wood Fern 27 Sensitive Fern 55 Cinnamon Fern 60 Royal Fern 68 Interrupted Fern 74 Climbing Fern 75 Rattlesnake Fern 80 Slender Cliff Brake 89 "The unpromising wall of rock which rose beside us"
From a photograph by Miss Ledyard. 94
More compound frond of Purple Cliff Brake 95 Christmas Fern 97 Narrow-leaved Spleenwort 98 Brake 106 Maidenhair 110 Mountain Spleenwort 130 Mountain Spleenwort 132 "In the shaded crevices of a cliff"
From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith. 132
Maidenhair Spleenwort 137 Walking Leaf 146 "We fairly gloated over the quaint little plants"
From a photograph by Miss Ledyard. 148
Hart's Tongue
From a photograph by Miss Madeline Smith. 178
Common Polypody 184 Long Beech Fern 187 Oak Fern 191 Bulblet Bladder Fern 194
How to Know the Ferns
FERNS AS A HOBBY
I think it is Charles Lamb who says that every man should have a hobby, if it be nothing better than collecting strings. A man with a hobby turns to account the spare moments. A holiday is a delight instead of a bore to a man with a hobby. Thrown out of his usual occupations on a holiday, the average man is at a loss for employment. Provided his neighbors are in the same fix, he can play cards. But there are hobbies and hobbies. As an occasional relaxation, for example, nothing can be said against card-playing. But as a hobby it is not much better than "collecting strings." It is neither broadening mentally nor invigorating physically, and it closes the door upon other interests which are both. I remember that once, on a long sea-voyage, I envied certain of my fellow-passengers who found amusement in cards when the conditions were such as to make almost any other occupation out of the question. But when finally the ship's course lay along a strange coast, winding among unfamiliar islands, by shores luxuriant with tropical vegetation and sprinkled with strange settlements, all affording delight to the eye and interest to the mind, these players who had come abroad solely for instruction and pleasure could not be enticed from their tables, and I thanked my stars that I had not fallen under the stultifying sway of cards. Much the same gratitude is aroused when I see men and women spending precious summer days indoors over the card-table when they might be breathing the fragrant, life-giving air, and rejoicing in the beauty and interest of the woods and fields.
All things considered, a hobby that takes us out of doors is the best. The different open-air sports may be classed under this head. The chief lack in the artificial sports, such as polo, golf, baseball, etc., as opposed to the natural sports, hunting and fishing, is that while they are invaluable as a means of health and relaxation, they do not lead to other and broader interests, while many a boy-hunter has developed into a naturalist as a result of long days in the woods. Hunting and fishing would seem almost perfect recreations were it not for the life-taking element, which may become brutalizing. I wish that every mother who believes in the value of natural sport for her young boys would set her face sternly against any taking of life that cannot be justified on the ground of man's needs, either in the way of protection or support.
The ideal hobby, it seems to me, is one that keeps us in the open air among inspiring surroundings, with the knowledge of natural objects as the end in view. The study of plants, of animals, of the earth itself, botany, zoölogy, or geology, any one of these will answer the varied requirements of an ideal hobby. Potentially they possess all the elements of sport. Often they require not only perseverance and skill but courage and daring. They are a means of health, a relaxation to the mind from ordinary cares, and an absorbing interest. Any one of them may be used as a doorway to the others.
If parents realized the value to their childrens' minds and bodies of a love for plants and animals, of any such hobby as birds or butterflies or trees or flowers, I am sure they would take more pains to encourage the interest which instinctively a child feels in these things. It must be because such realization is lacking that we see parents apparently either too indolent or too ignorant to share the enthusiasm and to satisfy the curiosity awakened in the child's active mind by natural objects.
Of course it is possible that owing to the strange reticence of many children, parents may be unconscious of the existence of any enthusiasm or curiosity of this sort. As a little child I was so eager to know the names of the wild flowers that I went through my grandfather's library, examining book after book on flowers in the vain hope of acquiring the desired information. Always after more or less tedious reading, for I was too young to master tables of contents and introductions, I would discover that the volume under examination was devoted to garden flowers. But I do not remember that it occurred to me to tell anyone what I wanted or to ask for help. Finally I learned that a book on the subject, written "for young people," was in existence, and I asked my mother to buy it for me. The request was gratified promptly and I plodded through the preliminary matter of "How Plants Grow" to find that I was quite unable to master the key, and that any knowledge of the flowers that could appeal to my child-mind was locked away from me as hopelessly as before. Even though my one expressed wish had been so gladly met, I did not confide to others my perplexity, but surrendered sadly a cherished dream. Owing largely, I believe, to the reaction from this disappointment, it was many years before I attempted again to wrestle with a botanical key, or to learn the names of the flowers.
How much was lost by yielding too easily to discouragement I not only realize now, but I realized it partially during the long period when the plants were nameless. Among the flowers whose faces were familiar though their names were unknown, I felt that I was not making the most of my opportunities. And when I met plants which were both new and nameless, I was a stranger indeed. In the English woods and along the lovely English rivers, by the rushing torrents and in the Alpine meadows of Switzerland, on the mountains of Brazil, I should have felt myself less an alien had I been able then as now to detect the kinship between foreign and North American plants, and to call the strangers by names that were at least partially
To the man or woman who is somewhat at home in the plant-world, travel is quite a different thing from what it is to one who does not know a mint from a mustard. The shortest journey to a new locality is full of interest to the traveller who is striving to lengthen his list of plant acquaintances. The tedious waits around the railway station are welcomed as opportunities for fresh discoveries. The slow local train receives blessings instead of anathemas because of the superiority of its windows as posts of observation. The long stage ride is too short to satisfy the plant-lover who is keeping count of the different species by the roadside.
While crossing the continent on the Canadian Pacific Railway a few years ago, the days spent in traversing the vast plains east of the Rockies were days of keen enjoyment on account of the new plants seen from my window and gathered breathlessly for identification during the brief stops. But to most of my fellow-passengers they were days of unmitigated boredom. They could not comprehend the reluctance with which I met each nightfall as an interruption to my watch.
When, finally, one cold June morning we climbed the glorious Canadian Rockies and were driven to the hotel at Banff, where we were to rest for twenty-four hours, the enjoyment of the previous week was crowned by seeing the dining-room tables decorated with a flower which I had never succeeded in finding in the woods at home. It was the lovely little orchid, Calypso borealis, a shy, wild creature which had been brought to me from the mountains of Vermont. It seemed almost desecration to force this little aristocrat to consort with the pepper-pots and pickles of a hotel dining-room. In my eagerness to see Calypso in her forest-home I could scarcely wait to eat the breakfast for which a few moments before I had been painfully hungry.
Unfortunately the waiters at Banff were proved as ruthless as vandals in other parts of the world. Among the pines that clothed the lower mountain-sides I found many plants of Calypso, but only one or two of the delicate blossoms had been left to gladden the eyes of those who love to see a flower in the wild beauty of its natural surroundings.
That same eventful day had in store for me another delight as the result of my love for plants. For a long time I had wished to know the shooting-star, a flower with whose general appearance from pictures or from descriptions I was familiar. I knew that it grew in this part of the world, but during a careful search of the woods and meadows and of the banks of the rushing streams the only shooting-star I discovered was a faded blossom which someone had picked and flung upon the mountain-path. Late in the afternoon, having given up the hope of any fresh find, I went for a swim in the warm sulphur pool. While paddling about the clear water, revelling in the beauty of the surroundings and the sheer physical joy of the moment, my eyes fell suddenly on a cluster of pink, cyclamen-like blossoms springing from the opposite rocks. I recognized at once the pretty shooting-star.
Two days later, at Glacier, I had another pleasure from the same source in the discovery of great beds of nodding golden lilies, the western species of adder's tongue, growing close to white fields of snow.
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance."
The enjoyment of the entire trip to the Pacific coast, of the voyage among the islands and glaciers of Alaska, and of the journey home through the Yellowstone and across our Western prairies, was increased indescribably by the new plants I learned to know.
The pleasure we take in literature, as in travel, is enhanced by a knowledge of nature. Not only are we able better to appreciate writers on nature so original and inspiring as Thoreau, or so charming as John Burroughs, but such nature-loving poets as Wordsworth, Lowell, Bryant, and countless others, mean infinitely more to the man or woman who with a love of poetry combines a knowledge of the plants and birds mentioned in the poems.
Books of travel are usually far more interesting if we have some knowledge of botany and zoölogy. This is also true of biographies which deal with men or women who find either their work or their recreation—and how many men and women who have been powers for good may be counted in one class or the other—in some department of natural science.
One fascinating department of nature-study, that of ferns, has received but little attention in this country. Within the last few years we have been supplied with excellent and inexpensive hand-books to our birds, butterflies, trees, and flowers. But so far as I know, with the exception of Mr. Williamson's little volume on the "Ferns of Kentucky," we have no book with sufficient text and illustrations within the reach of the brains and purse of the average fern-lover. In England one finds books of all sizes and prices on the English ferns, while our beautiful American ferns are almost unknown, owing probably to the lack of attractive and inexpensive fern literature. Eaton's finely illustrated work on the "Ferns of North America" is entirely out of the question on account of its expense; and the "Illustrated Flora" of Britton & Brown is also beyond the reach of the ordinary plant-lover. Miss Price's "Fern Collectors' Hand-book" is helpful, but it is without descriptive text. "Our Native Ferns and their Allies," by Mr. Underwood, is exhaustive and authoritative, but it is extremely technical and the different species are not illustrated. Mr. Dodge's pamphlet on the "Ferns and Fern Allies of New England" is excellent so far as it goes, the descriptions not being so technical as to confuse the beginner. But this also is not illustrated, while Mr. Knobel's pamphlet, "The Ferns and Evergreens of New England," has clear black-and-white illustrations of many species, but it has no text of importance.
In view of the singular grace and charm of the fern tribe, patent to the most careless observer, this lack of fern literature is surprising. It is possible that Thoreau is right in claiming that "we all feel the ferns to be farther from us essentially and sympathetically than the phenogamous plants, the roses and weeds for instance." This may be true in spite of the fact that to some of us the charm of ferns is as great, their beauty more subtle, than that of the flowering plants, and to learn to know them by name, to trace them to their homes, and to observe their habits is attended with an interest as keen, perhaps keener, than that which attends the study of the names, haunts, and habits of the flowers.
That ferns possess a peculiar power of blinding their votaries to the actual position they occupy in the minds of people in general seems to me evidenced by the following quotations, taken respectively from Mr. Underwood's and Mr. Williamson's introductions.
So competent and coldly scientific an authority as Mr. Underwood opens his book with these words: