Kitabı oxu: «Beautiful Ferns», səhifə 4

ASPIDIUM FILIX-MAS, Swartz.
Male Fern

Aspidium Filix-mas: – Root-stock short, stout, ascending or erect; stalks rarely over a foot long, very chaffy with large lanceolate-acuminate scales and smaller ones intermixed; fronds standing in a crown, one to three feet long, half-evergreen, firm-membranaceous, broadly oblong-lanceolate, slightly narrowed toward the base, pinnate or sub-bipinnate; pinnæ lanceolate-acuminate from a broad base, pinnatifid almost or rarely quite to the midrib; segments smooth and full-green above, slightly paler and bearing a few little chaffy scales beneath, normally oblong, obtuse or even truncate, slightly toothed, in another form ovate-lanceolate, acutish and pinnately incised; veins free, forked or pinnately branched into from two to five veinlets; sori rather large, nearer the midvein than the margin, commonly occurring only on the lower half or two-thirds of each segment; indusia convex when young, rather firm, smooth or minutely glandular, orbicular-reniform.

Aspidium Filix-mas, Swartz, in Schraders Journal, ii., (1800) p. 38; Syn. Fil., p. 55. – Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 45, t. 44. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 259. – Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 105. – Ruprecht, Distr. Krypt. Vasc, in Imp. Ross., p. 35. – Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 83. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspidium, p. 55. – Eaton, in Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 666. – Milde, in Nov. Act. Acad. Nat. Cur., xxvi., ii., p. 507; Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 118. – Miquel, Prolusio Fl. Jap., p. 117.

Polypodium Filix-mas, Linnæus, Sp. Pl. p. 1551.

Polystichum Filix-mas, Roth, “Fl. Germ., iii., p. 82.” – Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ, et Helv., ed. iii., p. 733.

Nephrodium Filix-mas, Richard, “in Desvaux, Mém. Soc. Linn., vi., p. 60.” – Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. 15; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 117. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272 (excl. vars. γ and δ).

Dryopteris Filix-mas, Schott, Gen. Fil. – Newman, Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. iii., p. 184.

Lastrea Filix-mas, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76. – Moore, Brit. Ferns, Nat. Pr., t. xiv, xv, xvi, xvii.

Var. incisum, Mettenius: – Frond ample, two to three feet long, scantily chaffy on the rachis; segments rather distant, lanceolate, tapering to a sub-acute point, incised on the margins with serrated lobules; indusium rather delicate, in age shrivelling or falling off. – Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. et Atl., p. 120. —Lastrea Filix-mas, var. incisa, Moore, l.c. —Nephrodium Filix-mas, var. affine, Hooker & Baker. l.c.

Var. paleaceum, Mettenius: – Frond ample, two to three feet long, stalk and rachis very chaffy with ferruginous or blackish scales; segments oblong, truncate, nearly entire on the margins; indusium coriaceous, the edges much incurved, sometimes splitting in two. – Aspidium, p. 55; Milde, Fil. Eur. Atl., p. 121. —Lastrea Filix-mas, var. paleacea, Moore, l.c. —Aspidium paleaceum, Don, “Prodr. Fl. Nepal., p. 4;” Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 92. Aspidium parallelogrammum, Kunze, in Linnæa, xiii., p. 146, etc. —Nephrodium Filix-mas, var. parallelogrammum, Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 116. —Dichasium parallelogrammum and D. patentissimum, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 302, t. xxiii, B.—Lastrea truncata, Brackenridge, Fil. of U. S. Expl. Exped., p. 195, t. 27 (admirable).¹

Hab. – In one form or another, this species occurs in America from Greenland to Peru, throughout Europe and Asia, in parts of Africa, and in many islands of the ocean. The ordinary European form corresponding to Moore’s plate XIV has been collected in British Columbia by Dr. Lyall, in Keweenaw Peninsula of Northern Michigan by Dr. Robbins, and in the mountains of Colorado by Messrs. Hall & Harbour and Mr. Brandegee. Var. incisum was found at the base of calcareous rocks at Royston Park, Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada, by Mrs. Roy, and in the mountains of Colorado by Dr. Scovill, for one of whose specimens I am indebted to D. A. Watt, Esq., of Montreal. Fragments of apparently the same form have been received from Dakota. The Californian plant mentioned in Plantæ Hartwegianæ, p. 342, is better regarded as a form of Aspidium rigidum. Var. paleaceum has not been found in either Canada or the United States, but is well known in Mexico, in Europe, in Southern Asia, in the Hawaiian Islands, etc.

Description: – This fern has a stout, usually ascending, but sometimes erect, very chaffy root-stock, very much like that of the species last described. It sometimes rises a little above the surface of the ground, forming a short trunk.

The stalks seem to vary a good deal in length, being sometimes only two or three inches long, and at other times over a foot. They are clustered at the growing end of the root-stock, and their bases, which remain long after the rest has perished, are consolidated with the root-stock. The stalks are always more or less chaffy, the chaff mainly confined to the lowest portion in some plants, and in others following the stalk and the rachis to the apex of the frond. The largest scales are sometimes fully an inch long. They are narrowly lanceolate-acuminate, distantly ciliate-denticulate on the margin, and composed of narrow but somewhat sinuous cells. Mixed in with them are smaller scales, from two to four lines long, and more distinctly ciliate-toothed. The color of the scales is different in different specimens, varying from bright golden-brown to ferruginous-brown with a darker spot at the base, and from this to nearly black, especially in the sub-tropical and tropical forms of var. paleaceum. Such specimens are sometimes fairly shaggy with the abundance of scales, which are also found, decreasing in number and in size, on the midribs of the pinnæ, and even on the lower surface of the segments. The usual number of fibro-vascular bundles is seven.

The fronds are broadly lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, usually narrowed a little, or even conspicuously narrowed, at the base, and acute or acuminate at the apex. They are of a full herbaceous green above, a little paler beneath, and of a rather firmly membranaceous, or, in tropical forms, of a sub-coriaceous texture. Their average length is from one to two feet, but fronds three feet long are occasionally seen; and one very fine example of var. paleaceum, collected in Chiapas, Mexico, by Dr. Ghiesbreght, is three feet and a half long, exclusive of the stalk.

The pinnæ are sometimes very numerous; as many as forty on each side have been counted on very large fronds, but the number is more commonly less than twenty. They are lanceolate-acuminate in shape, tapering from a broad base to a slender point; in the common form their average breadth at the base is half to three-fourths of an inch, but in var. incisum they are often fully two inches broad at the base. Their length is from three or four inches in the common form to six or seven inches in the largest specimens I have seen. The midrib of the pinnæ is always more or less winged, so that the pinnæ may be said to be pinnatifid, and the segments to be connected by a narrow wing.

The shape of the segments differs in the several varieties; in the type they are very close together, oblong, with a rounded apex, and not very deeply toothed: in var. paleaceum they are also closely-placed, and oblong, but mostly truncate at the apex; and in var. incisum they are much larger and less closely-placed, ovate-lanceolate in shape, and incised with toothed lobes along the sides.

The veins are free, and are forked or alternately divided into from two to five veinlets. The sori are rather large, placed nearer the midvein than the margin, and are rarely produced towards the apex of the segments.

The indusium is orbicular-reniform, and almost always smooth. Its edges are turned downward, enclosing the sporangia, when they are young, and sometimes this convexity is permanent. Rarely the sinus is so deep that the indusium at last becomes divided. The spores are ovoid, and have a muricately roughened surface.

The rhizomes have been used for ages as an anthelmintic, but probably have no greater virtue in this direction than those of many other common species.

PELLÆA TERNIFOLIA, Link.
Trifoliate Cliff-Brake

Pellæa ternifolia: – Root-stock short, thick, nodose, chaffy with very narrow dark-brown scales; stalks clustered, purplish-black and polished, three to six inches long; fronds as long as or longer than the stalks, oblong-linear; pinnæ from four to fifteen pairs, all but a few of the highest ones deeply tripartite; segments elongated-oval or linear-obovate, sub-coriaceous, somewhat glaucous beneath, green above, slightly mucronate, the middle one in large fronds indistinctly petiolulate; fertile ones with the edges much recurved; involucre broad, the edge only membranaceous.

Pellæa ternifolia, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59. – Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 129. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., i., p. 142; Fil. Exot., t. xv. – Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 118. – Eaton, Ferns of the Southwest, p. 321.

Pteris ternifolia, Cavanilles, “Præl. 1801, No. 657.” – Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil., t. 126.

Platyloma ternifolium, J. Smith. – Brackenridge, Fil. U. S. Ex. Exped., p. 94.

Allosorus ternifolius, Kunze, in Linnæa, xxiii., p. 220.

Pteris subverticillata, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 103. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375.

Hab. – Texas, Trécul, No. 1334, according to Fournier. New Mexico, Wright, according to Hooker in Filices Exoticæ. The only specimens from Texas which I have of this species were collected by Dr. Sutton Hayes, near the headwaters of the Rio Colorado of Texas. It is a common Mexican species; it is found as far South as Peru, and reap pears in the Hawaiian Islands.

Description: – This belongs to the same group of species as P. Wrightiana, brachyptera and Ornithopus. It has the same nodose and scaly root-stock, dark and polished stalk, glaucescent frond and mucronulate pinnules. In Mexico, South America and the Hawaiian Islands it never occurs with more than trifoliolate pinnules, and this is perhaps the best reason for considering P. Wrightiana a distinct species. The pinnæ are tripartite rather than trifoliolate, while in the other fern just referred to, when trifoliolate the odd pinnule is more distinct and usually stalked, a distinction indicated by Hooker, but for which I am more indebted to the accurate discrimination of Mr. Faxon. In more southern localities the fronds are considerably larger than Dr. Hayes’ specimens, and the segments of the pinnæ ampler. In very dry seasons the pinnæ are considerably deflexed. The spores are trivittate as in the related species.

PELLÆA ATROPURPUREA, Link.
Clayton’s Cliff-Brake

Pellæa atropurpurea: – Root-stock short, knotted, chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft cinnamon-brown scales; stalks four to eight inches high, terete, wiry, dark-purple or reddish-black, polished or more or less pubescent with paleaceous hairs; fronds six to twelve inches long, ovate or oblong-lanceolate in outline, evergreen, sub-coriaceous, pinnate, usually twice pinnate near the base; rachises smooth or hairy; pinnæ four to twelve pairs, the lower ones long-stalked, and divided into five to nine pinnules; upper pinnæ and the pinnules nearly sessile; oval to linear-oblong, at the base truncate or sub-cordate or sometimes hastate, obtuse or obtusely mucronulate, terminal ones longest; veins obscure, mostly twice forked; involucre rather broad, formed of the continuously recurved margin, paler and membranaceous on the edge, not fully covering the ripened sporangia.

Pellæa atropurpurea, Link, Fil. Hort. Berol., p. 59. – Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 129. – Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 138. – Eaton, in Chapman’s Flora, p. 589; Gray’s Manual, ed. v., p. 660; Ferns of the South-West, p. 319. – Lawson, in Canad. Naturalist, i., p. 272. – Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 147. – Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 119. – Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 52, t. 12.

Pteris atropurpurea, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1534. – Michaux, Fl. Bor. – Am., ii., p. 261. – Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 106. – Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 93, t. 101. – Willdenow, Sp. Pl., v., p. 375. – Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 668.

Platyloma atropurpureum, J. Smith. – Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 488.

Allosorus atropurpureus, Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 86; Linnæa, xxiii., p. 218. – Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 591. – Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 44.

Pellæa mucronata, Fée, 9me Mém., p. 8.

Pellæa glabella, Mettenius & Kuhn, in Linnæa, xxxvi., p. 87.

Pteris spiculata, Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 92, t. 100.

Pteris Adianti facie, caule ramulis petiolisque politiore nitore nigricantibus, etc., Gronovius, Fl. Virginica, ed. i., p. 197.

Hab. – Crevices of shaded calcareous rocks; from Canada to the Rocky Mountains of British America, and southward to Alabama, Arkansas, Indian Territory and Arizona. It has been found in several parts of Mexico, and even in South America (“Andes of Mecoya, Pearce,” according to Synopsis Filicum). It was collected by John Clayton about 1736, “on the shore of the river Rappahannock in a shady place by the root of a juniper near the promontory called Point Lookout,” and I take pleasure in giving it an English name in his honor.

Description: – The root-stock of this fern is rather short, usually somewhat nodose, and densely chaffy with very narrow long-pointed soft bright-brown scales, which in the specimens examined are destitute of midnerve.

The stalks are rigid and wiry, terete, nearly black in color, but with a slight reddish tinge, and usually more or less pubescent with very narrow chaffy hairs, which are often more abundant and harsher along the rachises, making them almost hirsute. Pellæa glabella was founded on specimens from Missouri and the North-West, which had the stalk perfectly smooth, and the chaff of the root-stock a trifle wider than usual. The section of the stalk shows a single U-shaped fibro-vascular bundle, and a strong outer sclerenchymatous sheath.

The fronds are developed late in the Spring, and remain green through the next Winter. They are almost coriaceous in texture, smooth and dark-bluish-green above, paler, and sometimes slightly chaffy beneath. They are from a few inches to about a foot in length, and vary in outline from ovate to oblong-lanceolate. In seedling plants the earliest fronds are round-cordate, the next cordate-ovate, and then follow trifoliate, pinnate, and finally mature bipinnate fronds. The largest fronds have about five pairs of compound pinnæ, each with from three to eleven pinnules, and above these are from four to six pairs of simple pinnæ, besides the terminal one, which is often the longest of all.

The pinnules and the simple pinnæ of the sterile fronds are commonly oval, and not more than half an inch long, but those of the fertile fronds are narrower and longer, sometimes nearly two inches long. The base is either truncate or slightly cordate; sometimes where there is a transition from compound to simple pinnæ, a pinna will be found conspicuously auricled on both sides, or on the upper side only. Forked pinnules are occasionally seen.

The margin is continuously recurved to form a rather broad involucre, and the very edge is somewhat thinner and whiter. The veins are pinnately arranged on both sides of the midvein, and fork about twice before reaching the margin. The upper part of the veinlets is covered with sporangia, which as they ripen push out from beneath the involucre. The spores are obscurely tetrahedral and trivittate, as in the other species of the genus.

This fern very often grows in company with Camptosorus rhizophyllus, and its root-stock is often hidden beneath mosses of the genus Anomodon: it takes kindly to cultivation, especially if it be planted in the crevices of calcareous rock-work. It may occur on other than calcareous rock, but I have never seen it on either granite, sandstone or basalt.

Names for varieties of this species have been proposed by Pursh, and by Fournier, but the characters assigned do not seem sufficiently distinctive.