Our lowland or southern lady fern flourishes in the southern states, comes up the Atlantic Coast until it meets the upland or northern species in Pennsylvania and southern New England, and their identification can hardly fail to awaken in the student a keen interest.

Our American botanists are inclined to think that the real _Athrium flix-femina_ is not to be found in the northeastern United States, but is rather a western species, with its habitat in California and the Rocky Mountain region and identical with _Athrium cyclosrum_.

But whatever changes may occur in the scientific name of the old _Athrium flix-femina_, the name lady fern will not change, but everywhere within our limits it will hold its own as a familiar term.

Underwood, writing of the lady fern under the genus _Asplenium_, mentions the form "_exle_, small, starved specimens growing in very dry situations and often fruiting when only a few inches high." He also mentions Eaton's "_angustum_," and alludes to the "Remaining sixty-three varieties equally unimportant that have been described of this species."

The lady fern is common in moist woods, by walls and roadsides, and at its best is a truly handsome species, although, like Mrs. Parsons, we have noticed that in the late summer it loses much of its delicacy. "Many of its forms become disfigured and present a rather blotched and coa.r.s.e appearance." The lady fern has inspired several poems, which have been quoted more or less fully in the fern books. The following lines are from the pen of Calder Campbell:

"But not by burne in wood or dale Grows anything so fair As the palmy crest of emerald pale Of the lady fern when the sunbeams turn To gold her delicate hair."

Referring, perhaps, to the fair colors of the unfolding crosiers revealing stipes of a clear wine color in striking contrast with the delicate green of the foliage.

In identifying this fern the novice should bear in mind the tendency of the curved sori of youth to become straightened and even confluent with age, although such changes are rather unreliable. Possibly the suggestion of the poetic Davenport may be helpful to some that there is "An indefinable charm about the various forms of the lady fern, which soon enables one to know it from its peculiarly graceful motion by merely gently swaying a frond in the hand." Spores ripen in August.

The lady fern is very easy to cultivate and when once established is apt to crowd aside its neighbors.

(3) SILVERY SPLEENWORT. ATHRIUM ACROSTICHIDES

_Asplenium acrostichides. Asplenium thelypterides_

Fronds two to four feet tall, pinnate, tapering both ways from the middle.

Pinnae deeply pinnatifid, linear-lanceolate, ac.u.minate. Lobes oblong, obtuse, minutely toothed, each bearing two rows of oblong or linear fruit-dots. Indusium silvery when young.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Silvery Spleenwort. _Athyrium acrostichoides_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Silvery Spleenwort. Athyrium acrostichoides]

The sterile fronds come up first and the taller, fertile ones do not appear until late in June. Where there are no fruit-dots the hairs on the upper surface of the fronds will help to distinguish it from specimens of the Marsh fern tribe, which it somewhat resembles. The regular rows of nearly straight, clear-cut sori of the fertile fronds are very attractive, and the lower ones, as well as those at the slender tips of the pinnae, are frequently double.

Rich woods and moist, shady banks, New England to Kentucky and westward.

Generally distributed but hardly common.

(4) NARROW-LEAVED SPLEENWORT

ATHRIUM ANGUSTIFLIUM. _Asplenium angustiflium_

Fronds one to four feet tall, pinnate. Pinnae numerous, thin, short-stalked, linear-lanceolate, ac.u.minate, those of the fertile fronds narrower.

Fruit-dots linear. Indusium slightly convex.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Narrow-leaved Spleenwort. _Athyrium angustifolium_ (Vermont) (Geo. E. Davenport)]

In rich woods from southern Canada and New Hampshire to Minnesota and southward. September. Not common. Mt. Toby, Ma.s.s., Berlin and Meriden, Conn., and Danville, Vt. Can be cultivated but should not be exposed to severe weather, as its thin and delicate fronds are easily injured. Woolson writes of it, "There is nothing in the fern kingdom which looks so cool and refreshing on a hot day as a ma.s.s of this clear-cut, delicately made-up fern."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Pinnae and Sori of _Athyrium angustifolium_]

HART'S TONGUE

_Scolopendrium_. PHYLLTIS

Sori linear, a row on either side of the midvein, and at right angles to it, the indusium appearing to be double. (_Scolopendrium_ is the Greek for centipede, whose feet the sori were thought to resemble. _Phyllitis_ is the ancient Greek name for a fern.) Only one species in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sori of _Scolopendrium vulgare_]

(1) _Scolopendrium vulgare_

PHYLLTIS SCOLOPeNDRIUM

Fronds thick and leathery, oblong-lanceolate from an auricled, heart-shaped base, ten to twenty inches long and one to two inches wide. Margin entire, bright green.

In shaded ravines under limestone cliffs. Chittenango Falls, and Scolopendrium Lake, central New York, and Tennessee. Also, locally in Ontario and New Brunswick. One of the rarest of our native ferns, although very common in Great Britain. This plant is said to be easily cultivated, and to produce numerous varieties. According to Woolson, "No rockery is complete without the Hart's Tongue, the long, glossy, undulating fronds of which are sufficiently unique to distinguish any collection." In cultivation it "needs light protection through the winter in northern New England."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hart's Tongue. _Scolopendrium vulgare_ (Base of calcareous rocks, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada)]

WALKING FERN. WALKING LEAF

_Camptosrus_

Fruit-dots oblong or linear as in _Asplenium_, but irregularly scattered on either side of the reticulated veins of the simple frond, the outer ones sometimes confluent at their ends, forming crooked lines (hence, the name from the Greek meaning crooked sori). Only one species within our limits.

_Camptosrus rhizophyllus_

Fronds evergreen, leathery, four to eighteen inches long, heart-shaped at the base, but tapering towards the apex, which often roots and forms a new plant. Veins reticulated. The auricles of this species are sometimes elongated and may even take root.

This curious and interesting fern is one of the finest for rockeries, the tips taking root in rock-fissures. Shaded limestone, or sometimes other rocks. Shapleigh and Winthrop, Me., rarely in New Hampshire (Lebanon), and Connecticut, Mt. Toby, Ma.s.s., and western New England; also Canada to Georgia and westward.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Walking Fern. _Camptosorus rhizophyllus_]

THE SHIELD FERNS

THE CHRISTMAS AND HOLLY FERNS

_Polstichum_

These have been grouped with the wood ferns, but are now usually placed under the genus _Polstichum_, which has the sori round and covered with a circular indusium fixed to the frond by its depressed center. The wood ferns, on the other hand, have a kidney-shaped indusium attached to the fronds by the sinus. (_Polstichum_ is the Greek for many rows, the sori of some species being in many ranks.)

(1) THE CHRISTMAS FERN

_Polstichum acrostichides. Aspidium acrostichides_