[Illustration: ]
ASPIDIUM GOLDIANUM, Hooker.
Goldie’s Wood-Fern.
Aspidium Goldianum:—Root-stock stout, ascending, chaffy; stalks about a
foot long, chaffy at the base with large ovate-acuminate ferruginous or
deep-lustrous-brown scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two and a
half feet long, broadly ovate, or the fertile ones oblong-ovate,
chartaceo-membranaceous, nearly smooth, bright-green above, a little
paler beneath, pinnate; pinnæ broadly lanceolate, five to eight inches
long, one to two and a half broad, usually, especially the lowest ones,
narrower at the base than in the middle, pinnatifid almost to the midrib;
segments numerous, oblong-linear, often slightly falcate, crenate, or
serrate with sharp incurved teeth; veins free, mostly with three
veinlets, the lowest superior veinlets bearing near their base the large
sori very near the midvein; indusium large, flat, smooth, orbicular with
a narrow sinus.
_Aspidium Goldianum_, Hooker, in Goldie’s Acc. of rare Canad. Pl. in
Edinb. Phil. Journ., vi., p. 333; Fl. Am.-Bor., ii., p.
260.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p.
598, ed. v., p. 666.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspid., p.
56.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 95, t. xxxiv.
_Nephrodium Goldianum_, Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil. t. cii.—Hooker, Sp.
Fil., iv., p. 121.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272.
_Lastrea Goldiana_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Lawson, in Canad. Nat.
i., p. 282.
_Dryopteris Goldiana_, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 631.
_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662.
Hab.—Deep, rocky woods, from Canada and Maine to Indiana, Virginia and
Kentucky. It is also named in local catalogues of the flora of
Wisconsin and Kansas. Not known in the Old World.
Description:—The root-stock is creeping or ascending, several inches
long, and nearly an inch thick. This thickness is made up, in
considerable part, by the adherent bases of old stalks; the stalks being
perfectly continuous with the root-stock, and so much crowded as to
overlap each other. When fresh the root-stock is fleshy, and a
longitudinal section of it shows that its substance passes so gradually
into that of the stalk-bases, that no point of separation or distinction
between the two can be selected. This kind of root-stock is found also in
_Aspidium spinulosum_ and its allies, in _A. Filix-mas_, _A. cristatum_,
_A. marginale_, _A. Nevadense_, _A. fragrans_, and _A. rigidum_, and in
very many exotic species, and it is very unlike the root-stocks of _A.
Thelypteris_, _A. Noveboracense_, and _A. unitum_, species which have
been already described and figured in the present work. The
parenchymatous portion of the root-stock is loaded with starch in very
minute grains, as may be easily proved by adding a drop of alcoholic
solution of iodine to a thin slice of the root-stock placed under a
microscope, when the grains will be presently seen to turn blue, the
recognized sign of starch. This abundance of nutritive material in the
root-stock enables it to send up a fine circle of large fronds in the
proper season of the year.
The stalks are from nine to fifteen inches long, rather stout, green when
living, but straw-color when dried for the herbarium, in which condition
they are furrowed in front and along the two sides. At the base they are
covered with large ovate-acuminate brown or sometimes dark and shining
scales. Mixed in with these are smaller and narrower chaffy scales, which
also are found along the whole length of the stalk and the rachis. The
cross-section of the stalk shows two rather large roundish fibro-vascular
bundles on the anterior side, and three, the middle one largest, at the
back.
Several fronds are usually seen growing from a root-stock, those produced
early in the season commonly sterile, and shorter than the others. The
full-grown and fertile fronds are often two feet or two and a half feet
long, and about one foot broad. The general outline is oblong-ovate, the
lowest pinnæ being scarcely, if at all, shorter than those in the middle
of the frond. There are usually about eight or ten full-sized pinnæ each
side of the rachis, besides the gradually diminishing pinnæ near the
acute pinnatifid apex. The larger pinnæ are from five to eight inches
long, the middle ones an inch or an inch and a half wide, but the lowest
ones two inches and a half broad. The greatest breadth of the pinnæ is
usually near the middle or even a little above the middle, so that they
are slightly narrowed towards the base; and in this character lies one of
the readiest distinctions between this fern and those large forms of _A.
cristatum_, which have occasionally been mistaken for _A. Goldianum_; for
in that other species the greatest breadth of the pinnæ is uniformly at
the base.
The segments of the pinnæ are from fifteen to twenty each side the
midrib: the incisions do not extend quite to the midrib, so that the
latter is narrowly winged, and the pinnæ are pinnatifid rather than
pinnate. The segments are from nine to eighteen lines long, and about
three lines wide: they are set rather obliquely on the midrib, and are
often slightly curved upwards, or falcate. They are obtuse or somewhat
acute, and have the edges crenate, or more or less distinctly serrate
with sharp incurved teeth.
The veins are free, and are pinnately forked into from three to five
slender oblique veinlets, of which the lowest one on the upper side is
the longest, and bears a fruit-dot near its base. The fruit-dots are
seldom or never found on the two or three lowest pinnæ, but on the rest
they are arranged in a row each side the midveins of the segments, and
much nearer the midveins than the margins. There are in all from ten to
twenty to a segment.
The indusia are larger than in most of the related species, flat,
perfectly smooth, orbicular with a very narrow sinus, and slightly
erose-crenulate on the margin. In the second edition of Gray’s Manual it
is said that the indusium is “often orbicular without a distinct sinus,
as in _Polystichum_;” and it is sometimes difficult to see the sinus, but
I think it is rather because the sides of it overlap than because there
is none. The sporangia have a ring of from fifteen to twenty
articulations. The spores are ovoid, and somewhat roughened on the
surface.
This fern is one of the very finest and largest of the species of the
Eastern States, being surpassed in these respects only by the osmundas
and the ostrich-fern. The fronds are smooth, deep-green in color,
slightly paler beneath, and of a rather firm papery texture. Unlike _A.
Filix-mas_ and _A. cristatum_ the fronds wither in the fall of the year,
and are not “half-evergreen.”
It was collected by Pursh on his visit to America in the early part of
this century, the precise locality not known,—in the Flora he says “New
Jersey to Virginia,”—and was by him referred to _A. Filix-mas_. His
specimens, preserved in the herbarium at Kew, are partly _A. Goldianum_
and partly _A. cristatum_. Mr. John Goldie’s discovery was made near
Montreal, about the year 1818, and the excellent figure in Hooker &
Greville’s Icones Filicum was probably taken from one of his specimens,
or perhaps from live plants originally brought by him to the Botanic
Garden at Glasgow.
Though not one of our commonest Ferns, this is very abundant in certain
localities:—Mrs. Roy sends it from Owen Sound, Canada; Dr. Bumstead got
it in Smuggler’s Notch, Mt. Mansfield, Vermont; Mr. Frost has a fine
station on Mt. Wantastiquet, New Hampshire; I find it plentiful and fine
in the deep ravine called Roaring Brook, in Cheshire, Connecticut;
Professor Porter has it from Burgoon’s Gap, in the Alleghany Mountains of
Pennsylvania; Mrs. McCall, near Madison, Ohio; Mr. Williamson “found it
in great abundance near the Little Rockcastle River, in Laurel County,”
Kentucky, and Mr. Curtis has twice sent me fine specimens, with very dark
scales at the base of the stalks, from the Peaks of Otter, Virginia.
The name is sometimes written _Goldieanum_; I give the name as it occurs
in Goldie’s original paper in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.
The specimen drawn by Mr. Faxon is from Vermont, and is represented
about two-thirds of the natural size.
WEBBY LIP-FERN.
EATON’S LIP-FERN.
[Illustration: ]
CHEILANTHES TOMENTOSA, Link.
Webby Lip-Fern.
Cheilanthes tomentosa:—Root-stock short, chaffy with glossy subulate
scales; stalks tufted, four to eight inches long, erect, rather stout,
clothed with soft woolly pale-ferruginous hairs, intermixed with others
which are flattened and decidedly paleaceous; fronds eight to fifteen
inches long, oblong-lanceolate, webby-tomentose with slender
brownish-white obscurely articulated hairs, especially beneath,
tripinnate; primary and secondary pinnæ oblong or ovate-oblong; ultimate
pinnules closely placed, but distinct, roundish-obovate, sessile, or
adnate to the tertiary rachis, one-half to three-fourths of a line long,
the terminal ones twice longer; involucres whitish, continuous round the
pinnule and very narrow.
_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Link, “Hort. Berol., ii., p. 42.”—Fil. Hort.
Berol., p. 65.—Kunze, in Sill. Journ., July, 1848, p. 87; in
Linnæa, xxiii., p. 245.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 592.—Mettenius,
Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 50; Cheilanthes, p. 37.—Eaton, in Chapman’s
Flora, p. 590; Ferns of the South-West, p. 314.—Baker, Syn. Fil.,
p. 140.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 49, t. xi.
_Myriopteris tomentosa_, Fée, Gen. Fil., p. 149, t. xii., _A._, f. 2 (a
pinnule).—Fournier, Pl. Mex., Crypt., p. 125 (species exclusa).
_Notholæna tomentosa_, J. Smith.
_Cheilanthes Bradburii_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 97, t. cix.,
_B._—Mettenius, Cheilanthes, p. 37.
Hab.—Sandstone rocks along the French Broad River, in North Carolina
and Eastern Tennessee, Professor Gray, Mr. Canby, Rev. D. R. Shoop,
Professor Bradley, etc. Texas, Lindheimer, No. 743. Mountains of
Virginia (?) and Kentucky, according to Gray’s Manual, but Mr.
Williamson has hitherto failed to find it in the last named State. The
Kew herbarium contains, besides Lindheimer’s plant, a very imperfect
specimen marked “Manitou Rocks, 250 miles up the Missouri, Bradbury,”
and good specimens from Texas collected by Drummond. Kunze states that
it was raised [at the Leipzig garden?] from Mexican spores, and that
Rugel collected a few specimens in North Carolina; but Fournier rejects
it as a Mexican species.
Description:—This is decidedly the largest plant among all our North
American species of Cheilanthes, some of the tallest specimens measuring
nearly two feet in total length. The root-stock is short, and disposed to
branch. It is thickly clad with fine subulate chaff, many of the scales
with a dark and rigid midnerve, and others lighter-colored and without
midnerve. The plant evidently grows in dense masses. The stalks are
clustered, each root-stock sending up a large number of them. They are
rigid, wiry, terete and covered with grayish-tawny spreading soft woolly
hairs, intermixed with a few which are broader and decidedly paleaceous,
especially towards the base. The section is round, and shows a firm
exterior sclerenchymatous sheath, within which is a broad circle of
brownish parenchyma, and in the middle a single fibro-vascular bundle
obtusely triangular in shape, but with the sides slightly hollowed in.
The fronds vary from a few inches to over a foot in length; their general
shape is ovate-lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate; they are in general of a
grayish color from the abundance of a fine entangled tomentum, which
covers both surfaces, though it is a little thinner and whiter on the
upper surface. The large fronds are fully tripinnate. The primary pinnæ
are oblong-ovate, short-stalked, one to nearly two inches long, and a
half to three-fourths of an inch broad at the base. They are either
opposite or alternate, the lower ones, as usual, more separated than
those that are higher up on the frond. The secondary pinnæ are
close-placed, oblong, obtuse, and again pinnated into from two to five
minute rounded or rounded-obovate sessile or adnate-decurrent pinnules on
each side, besides a terminal oval pinnule which is twice as large as the
lateral ones. These ultimate pinnules are innumerable, and it is in
allusion to their very great number in this and the allied species that
the generic name _Myriopteris_ was proposed by Fée for the group.
The whole margin of the pinnule is recurved, and from the edge of it is
produced a very delicate whitish involucre, the whole forming a sort of
pouch, as is admirably represented in the figure given by Fée. The
sporangia have a ring of about twenty articulations: Fée says there are
vittate or knotted hairs growing among them. The spores are rather large,
amber-colored, globose, and delicately trivittate. According to Fée, when
placed in water they burst and dissolve into excessively minute sporules.
There can be no doubt that our plant is the _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of
Link. Kunze, who knew Link’s plant perfectly well, referred the North
Carolina specimens to it; and Dr. Mettenius, who succeeded to the care of
the Leipzig garden, favored me with specimens which are precisely the
same thing as the plant here described. But none of the Mexican
collectors seem to have found the species, and it may be legitimately
queried whether the commonly reported origin of Link’s specimens is the
true one. The _Cheilanthes tomentosa_ of the _Species Filicum_ is partly
this plant, but mainly the species next to be described.
CHEILANTHES EATONI, Baker.
Eaton’s Lip-Fern.
Cheilanthes Eatoni: Root-stock short, chaffy with rather long slenderly
acuminate glossy scales; stalks clustered, four to eight inches long,
erect, wiry, covered, as are the rachis and its divisions, with narrow
shining pale-ferruginous scales and paleaceous hairs intermixed; fronds
four to nine inches long, oblong-lanceolate, pubescent above with whitish
entangled woolly hairs, beneath covered with a heavy matted ferruginous
tomentum, and more or less scaly, especially when young, tripinnate;
pinnæ ovate-oblong, lower ones rather distant, upper ones crowded;
ultimate pinnules contiguous, half a line long, rounded, but narrowed at
the base, the terminal ones often twice larger and more decidedly
obovate; margin of the pinnules continuously recurved, the edge slightly
membranaceous.
_Cheilanthes Eatoni_, Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 140.—Porter & Coulter,
Synopsis of the Flora of Colorado, p. 153.—Eaton, Ferns of the
South-West, p. 315.
_Cheilanthes tomentosa_, Hooker, Sp. Fil., ii., p. 96 (description and
Texas plant), t. cix., _A._—Eaton, in Botany of the U. S. and
Mexican Boundary Survey, p. 234.
Hab.—Texas and New Mexico, Wright, No. 816; Fendler, No. 1016; Indian
Territory, between Fort Cobb and Fort Arbuckle, Palmer; near Cañon
City, Colorado, Brandegee; from the Rio Grande westward along the Gila
to the Colorado River, Collectors of Mexican Boundary Survey. The kind
of place where this fern has been collected is not recorded, but it
probably grows in the clefts of rocks along the sides and edges of
cañons.
Description:—This fern bears so close a resemblance to _Cheilanthes
tomentosa_, that it is not at all surprising that there has been more or
less of confusion between the two. It would seem that when writing his
account of the genus _Cheilanthes_ for the Species Filicum, Sir W. J.
Hooker had, in his collection, no examples of the North Carolina _C.
tomentosa_, and could identify it only by Link’s rather imperfect
description and Kunze’s remarks in Silliman’s Journal. Having Wright’s
specimens of the plant here described, and Gordon’s fern from the Rattene
Mountains—a plant not yet satisfactorily identified—he referred them to
the species named by Link; and then perceiving with his accustomed
delicate discrimination that Lindheimer’s and Bradbury’s plant was
distinct from Wright’s, he gave the former the name of _C. Bradburii_. It
was not until 1860, when the Ferns for Chapman’s Flora were being
prepared, that any one suspected that the _C. Bradburii_ was the true _C.
tomentosa_. In 1866, I had an opportunity of explaining the matter to Mr.
Baker, then at work on the Synopsis Filicum, and not long after, I was
surprised, and I need not say pleased, by finding that he had given to
Hooker’s _C. tomentosa_ the name it now bears.
The root-stock is short, assurgent, and chaffy with rather rigid
slender-pointed scales, most of them furnished with a dark midnerve. The
stalks are tufted, and are perhaps a little slenderer than those of _C.
tomentosa_. They are chaffy throughout, but more especially at the base,
with narrow pale ferruginous scales, intermixed with still slenderer
paleaceous hairs. The section is slightly flattened on the anterior side.
The exterior sheath is firm; inside of it is brownish parenchyma, and in
the middle a semicircular fibro-vascular bundle, the ducts in the centre
of it arranged in a figure much like a letter X.
The fronds are considerably smaller than in _C. tomentosa_. They are
similarly oblong-lanceolate and tripinnate, the ultimate pinnules being
very numerous and rather more closely crowded than in the other species
just referred to. The pubescence is harsher and not so webby on the upper
side, and is decidedly heavier and more matted on the under surface. The
scales of the branches, or secondary rachises, are broader and shorter
than those of the stalk and are very conspicuous in young fronds. In
older fronds they fall away, to some extent, and are then less abundant.
The pinnules are rather rounder and less oval than in _C. tomentosa_, and
though they are somewhat purse-shaped, the involucre consists almost
entirely of the recurved herbaceous margin, the proper whitish and
delicately membranous involucre being nearly suppressed.
The spores are sub-globose, amber-colored, faintly trivittate, and have a
finely pustulated or granular surface.
In respect to the narrow herbaceous involucre this fern comes nearest to
_Cheilanthes lanuginosa_, of Nuttall, figured in “Ferns of North
America.” It has, however, much larger fronds; and the copious, though
narrow scales of the stalk, as well as the scales of the rachises, will
readily distinguish it.
It is among the Ferns which have been cultivated by Hon. J. Warren
Merrill, though I am not informed what are its special needs in the way
of soil, moisture, etc.