Tree fern

“ This may not be respectful treatment, but it is not martyrdom; the fern is a generous plant, a thing of wiry root-stock and prehistoric tenacity; it has not forgotten that tree ferns are among its ancestors; when it is discouraged, it rests and grows again. But imagine the [Pg 191] feelings of a mat of exquisite maidenhair rent from a shady slope with moss and partridge vine at its feet, and quivering elusive woodland shade above, on finding itself unceremoniously crowded into a bed, between cannas or red geraniums! ”

“ Other nests such as those of bees and ants of a gray color spotted the rocks or any available bare space on the smooth bark of a tree. The effect of the giant tree fern spreading its graceful fronds over the path was enchanting; beneath its shade grew seemingly every other species of fern which one has ever noticed in hothouses at home. ”

“ The sombreness of the many pines was brightened by the lighter greens of birch and willow, with occasional dashes of rata-bloom. The tree-fern, growing to a tremendous height, had fronds six and eight feet long, and some of the other ferns were wine-red, bronze, and yellow. Many of the trees had smaller ones growing from their branches, and there were mosses in all the shades of green and yellow, with quantities of stag-moss growing like a carpet, so thick it was and long. ”

“ The wine-colored stipes of the uncoiling fronds shooting up in early spring, lifting gracefully their pink pinnæ and pretty panicles of bright green spore cases, throw an indescribable charm over the meadows and clothe even the wet, stagnant swamps with beauty nor is the attraction less when the showy fronds expand in summer and the green sporangia are turned to brown. The stout rootstocks are often erect, rising several inches to a foot above the ground, as if in imitation of a tree fern. ”

“ The ferns and the witch-hazel are themselves mysterious and promoters of mystery, and it is hard to tell which leads in waywardness and subornation of sorcery. The ferns are the lingering representatives of an elder world,—a world that was old before the first pine dropped its cones or the leaves of the first deciduous tree fell on the first greensward. Their ways are not the ways of modern plant life.
Take the cinnamon fern, for instance, one of the commonest of our woods. It grows up each spring like a tender and succulent herb, to wither and die down in the fall as the grass does. ”

“ The plant bears a family likeness to the Crested Shield Fern, but its conspicuously marginal fruit-dots identify it at sight.
It is interesting to read that it 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" (see Eaton, p. 70) . This peculiarity in the plant's growth is often striking and certainly suggests the tree-ferns of the green-house. ”

“ The fern tree, shooting up its rough stem, about the thickness of a small boat's mast, to the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and then, all at once shooting out a number of leaves in every direction, each at four or five feet in length, and exactly similar in appearance to the leaf of the common fern; while palms of various botanical species, are ever and anon shooting up their tall slender branchless stems to the height of seventy or a hundred feet, and then forming a large canopy of leaves, each of which bends gracefully outwards and then downwards, like a Prince of Wales' feathers. ”

“ Tree-ferns thrive luxuriantly in Van Diemen's Land (lat. 45 degrees) , and I measured one trunk no less than six feet in circumference. An arborescent fern was found by Forster in New Zealand in 46 degrees, where orchideous plants are parasitical on the trees. In the Auckland Islands, ferns, according to Dr. Dieffenbach, have trunks so thick and high that they may be almost called tree-ferns. ”

“ But the chief is that wonderful tangled mass of tropical undergrowth, and the tree ferns which grow in large clumps. Their fibrous black trunks attain to a height of six feet, expanding at the top into feathery arms, long and graceful in their sweeping curves. Nestling under their broad shadows are every other species of fern ”

“ There is nothing frightful, or dangerous, or disagreeable about the journey, even to ladies not accustomed to riding; and there is very much that is new, strange, and wonderful to Americans or Europeans. Especially you will be delighted with the great variety and beauty of the ferns, which range from minute and delicate species to the dark and grand fronds of the tree-fern, which rises in the more elevated region to a height of twenty feet, and whose stalk has sometimes a diameter of three or four feet. ”

“ In the centre of yonder little open space is a dead tree that some huge parasite has seized upon, dragged out of earth and imprisoned in a woody cage, every bar of which is tapestried with the most exquisite orchids. Yonder growth, which reaches far above your knees, consists of the great wheel-shaped maiden-hair fern, whose fronds are so exquisite and so brittle that you feel remorse at trampling so tender and delicate a carpet under foot. ”

“ Pinnæ lanceolate, acuminate, broadest just above the base. Pinnules oblong, often slightly falcate, entire or toothed. Fruit-dots large, round, close to the margin. Rocky hillsides in rich woods, rather common throughout our area. The heavy rootstock rises slightly above the ground and is clothed at the crown with shaggy, brown scales. Its rising caudex, often creeping for several inches over bare rocks, suggests the habit of a tree fern. In early spring it sends up a graceful circle of large, handsome, bluish-green blades. ”

“ Now just look at them—there is one, that, small as it is, has its little circular grass plat, with a hedge of china asters about it, and a little vase in the middle, from which hang tendrils of the pretty mountain myrtle; a woodbine creeps over the fence and my favorite tree (the willow) is struggling for life in yonder corner, and prettier than all, out dances a little fairy, with shining locks neatly parted, and a clean white pinafore tucked round her chubby little figure. ”

“ Then, from the sides, grow ribs, just as your ribs grow from your backbone. The stem of the fern leaf is a hint of a coming tree trunk; the veins in the leaf are hints of branches on the trunks. The fern leaf is really the far-away promise of a forest tree. Most fern-leaves are deeply parted between the ribs, clear down to the main stem, making branching leaflets. And on the very ends of the smallest leaflet veins, around the edges, the fern leaf bears its fruit, or spore discs, just as the most perfect rose tree bears its flowers and seed pods. ”

“ I measured some fronds twenty-two feet long, and at the base eight and a half inches in circumference; it far exceeds in beauty any other fern-tree I have ever seen; the largest trunks were not more than eight inches diameter. I was surprised to learn that fern-trees are very easily transplanted; in fact, if cut off with an axe, and the trunk buried about a foot, it will rarely fail of growing after a short time. This range of mountains was level at the top, and when viewed from a distance appeared like a wall. ”

“ Ferns are much like ordinary flowering plants; except for their lack of flowers, they have all the root, stem, and leaf characters of their more showy neighbors. While most of them have compound leaves, even sometimes twice or thrice compounded, a few have simple, narrow leaves without teeth, and one kind in tropical America has threadlike leaves. In many tropical rain forests, so called from their dripping wet condition, ferns form large trees, and these tree ferns are among the most graceful and feathery of all plants. ”

“ To these add ferns that climb aloft as parasites on branches and among foliage, or that creep upon the ground, after the manner of lycopodium, or coat fallen forest trees like mosses. The tree-ferns are large enough to be hewn down with axes, and to spread their fronds as wide as the state umbrellas of Asiatic kings. Thirty feet is no uncommon span for the shade they cast, and their height has been known to reach fifty feet. They are to other ferns as the wandering albatross is to lesser sea-birds. ”

“ In these denser forests, tree-ferns form nearly the sole undergrowth, except the small, starry ferns, of low stature, of the genus Lomaria, that cover the ground thinly. Some of the tree-ferns have trunks 20 feet high. ”

“ As might be expected, in the steamy, dripping atmosphere ferns are a predominating feature in the vegetation. Not less than two hundred different kinds are found. The most noticeable are the tree ferns, of which alone there are eight species. Their average height is about 20 feet, but plants of 40 and 50 feet are not uncommon. And with their tall trunks and crown of immense graceful fronds they form a striking feature in the forest, and in the moister valleys where they attain their full luxuriance they may be seen in extensive groves as well as in little groups. ”

“ Ferns which make broad crowns may be divided, and this is the common mode with many species. Some species produce creeping root-stocks, which emit roots if pegged down into a pot of soil or on a block of peat. Several plants can often be produced from such a layer. All these operations are best performed in late winter, before the new growth begins. The tree ferns are rarely propagated to any extent in cultivation, but young plants are imported from their native countries. ”

“ Then there are tree-ferns, which are ferns that have trunks like trees, which are sometimes thirty feet high, with fronds growing from their tops, so broad and tall that a number of people could sit underneath them in their cool, deep shade, as if they were a tent. ”

“ A magnificent genus of tropical and temperate tree ferns. Sori globose, dorsal, on a vein or in the forking of a vein; receptacle mostly elevated, frequently villous; involucre none. The species of this genus require an abundant supply of water, particularly in summer, and the young fronds must be carefully shaded from solar heat. They thrive well in a peat and loam compost. For general culture, see Ferns.
A. aculeata (prickly) .* fronds ample, tripinnate. rachises brown-stramineous; pinnæ ovate-lanceolate, 1ft. to 11⁄2ft. long; pinnules sessile, ligulate, 3in. ”

“ Perhaps none of our native plants have suffered more from those vandals who root up every pretty thing they see than the Ferns. To the average tripper there seems to be something irresistible in the green fronds, and up comes the root, or enough of it to destroy the plant, and the prize is carried home. Even if the fern is so fortunate as to be planted at all, it is probably dealt with in such a way that its chances of living are very remote. ”

“ Your sweet carol and the graceful waving of yonder tree, as the soft wind turns up its silver-lined leaves in the sunlight, fill my heart with a quiet gladness.
Whom have we here? with ragged skirt, bare mud-begrimm’d feet and ankles, tattered shawl, and tangled masses of hair fluttering round a face ploughed deep with time and trouble. See—she stoops, and, stretching her skeleton fingers towards the gutter, grasps some refuse rags and paper, and thrusts them greedily into the dirty sack she bears upon her shoulders. Good heavens! that dirty mass of rags a woman? ”

“ Fronds.—Oblong-ovate, 2-3 pinnate; pinnæ oblong-lance-shaped, spreading, rather distant, the lowest unequally triangular, the pinnules on the lower side longer than those on the upper side; pinnules ovate-oblong, spreading, with oblong lobes thorny-toothed at the apex; fruit-dots round; indusium delicate, beset with tiny stalked glands.
This is the form of the species that abounds in our woods. Perhaps no one plant does more for their beauty than this stately fern, whose rich-green, outward-curving fronds spring in circles from fallen trees and decaying stumps as well as from the ground. ”

“ Only the strong trees survive in these valleys, and by that ruthless selection of nature weak young saplings die early. So we found cedar, hemlock, lodge-pole pine, white and Douglas fir, cottonwood, white pine, spruce, and alder of enormous size.
The brake ferns were the most common, often growing ten feet tall. We counted five varieties of ferns growing in profusion, among them brake ferns, sword-ferns, and maidenhair, most beautiful and luxuriant. The maidenhair fern grew in masses, covering dead trunks of trees and making solid walls of delicate green beside the trail. ”

“ Fronds.—Once-pinnate; pinnæ pinnatifid, with oblong segments; fruit-dots oblong, in chain-like rows along the midrib both of the pinnæ and of the lobes, confluent when ripe; indusium fixed by its outer margin, opening on the side next the midrib.
Emerging from the shade and silence of a little wood upon the rolling downs where one has glimpses of the blue bay, our attention is attracted by a tall fern beside the path, growing among a tangle of shrubs and vines. ”

“ I think it would be fatal to the plant if much spray should fall on it during the season of its active growth. When you enter the shade and solitude of the haunts of this fern, its presence is betrayed by its resinous odor; looking up the face of the cliff, usually mottled with lichens and moss, you see it often far above your reach hanging against the rock, masses of dead brown fronds, the accumulations of many years, preserved by the resinous principle which pervades them ”

“ The soft autumn sunshine, shorn of summer glare, lights up with colour the fern, the fronds of which are yellow and brown, the leaves, the gray grass, and hawthorn sprays already turned. It seems as if the early morning's mists have the power of tinting leaf and fern, for so soon as they commence the green hues begin to disappear. There are swathes of fern yonder, cut down like grass or corn, the harvest of the forest. ”

“ This plant may be ranked among the earliest ferns of the year. In May or June, if we climb down to the brook where the columbine flings out her brilliant, nodding blossoms, we find the delicate little fronds, just uncurled, clinging to the steep, moist rocks, or perhaps beyond, in the deeper woods, they nestle among the spreading roots of some great forest tree. Their "fragile greenness" is very winning. As the plant matures, attaining at times a height of nearly two feet, it loses something of this first delicate charm. ”