"Mark ye the ferns that clothe these dripping rocks,
Their hair-like stalks, though trembling 'neath the shock
Of falling spraydrops, rooted firmly there."
The bladder ferns are a dainty, rock-loving family partial to a limestone
soil. (The Greek name _cystópteris_ means bladder fern, so called in
allusion to the hood-shaped indusium.)
(1) THE BULBLET BLADDER FERN
_Cystópteris bulbífera. Fìlix bulbífera_
Fronds lanceolate, elongated, one to three feet long, twice pinnate. Pinnæ
lanceolate-oblong, pointed, horizontal, the lowest pair longest. Rachis and
pinnæ often bearing bulblets beneath. Pinnules toothed or deeply lobed.
Indusium short, truncate on the free side. Stipe short.
[Illustration: Bulblet Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris bulbifera_ (Willoughby,
Vt., 1904, G.H.T.)]
[Illustration: Bulblet Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris bulbifera_]
One of the most graceful and attractive of our native ferns; an object of
beauty, whether standing alone or massed with other growths. It is very
easily cultivated and one of the best for draping. "We may drape our homes
by the yard," says Woolson, "with the most graceful and filmy of our common
ferns, the bladder fern." This fern and the maidenhair were introduced into
Europe in 1628 by John Tradescant, the first from America.
It delights in shaded ravines and dripping hillsides in limestone
districts. While producing spores freely it seems to propagate its species
mainly by bulblets, which, falling into a moist soil, at once send out a
pair of growing roots, while a tiny frond starts to uncoil from the heart
of the bulb. Mt. Toby, Mass., Willoughby Mountain, Vt., calcareous regions
in Maine, and west of the Connecticut River, Newfoundland to Manitoba,
Wisconsin and Iowa; south to northern Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas.
(2) THE COMMON BLADDER FERN
_Cystopteris frágilis. Filix frágilis_
Stipe long and brittle. Fronds oblong-lanceolate, five to twelve
inches long, twice pinnate, the pinnæ often pinnatifid or cut-toothed,
ovate-lanceolate, decurrent on the winged rachis. Indusium appearing acute
at the free end. Very variable in the cutting of the pinnules.
The fragile bladder fern, as it is often called, and which the name
_frágilis_ suggests, is the earliest to appear in the spring, and the
first to disappear, as by the end of July it has discharged its spores and
withered away. Often, however, a new crop springs up by the last of August,
as if Nature were renewing her youth. In outline the fragile bladder fern
suggests the blunt-lobed Woodsia, but in the latter the pinnæ and pinnules
are usually broader and blunter, and its indusium splits into jagged lobes.
Rather common in damp, shady places where rocks abound. In one form or
another, found nearly throughout the world though only on mountains in the
tropics.
[Illustration: Fragile Bladder Fern, Fruited Portion]
[Illustration: Fragile Bladder Fern. _Cystopteris fragilis_ (Wakefield,
Mass.)]