46. FRAGRANT SHIELD FERN
Aspidium fragrans (Dryopteris fragrans)
Northern New England to Wisconsin and northward, on rocks. Five to sixteen inches long, with very chaffy stalks having brown, glossy scales.
Fronds.—Lance-shaped, tapering to a point, nearly twice-pinnate, fragrant; pinnæ oblong-lanceolate, pinnatifid; fruit-dots round, large; indusium large and thin.
The Fragrant Shield Fern thrives in a colder climate than that chosen by many of its kinsmen. Though found in the White Mountains, in the Green Mountains (where it climbs to an elevation of four thousand feet), in the Adirondacks, and in other special localities of about the same latitude, yet it is rare till we journey farther north. It loves the crevices of shaded cliffs or mossy rocks, often thriving best in the neighborhood of rushing brooks and waterfalls. Frequently it seems to seek the most inaccessible spots, as if anxious to evade discovery. Mr. J. A. Bates, of Randolph, Vt., writes that he first saw this little plant through a telescope from the piazza of the Summit House on Mount Mansfield on an apparently inaccessible ledge, the only instance in my experience when the fern student has sought this method of observation, suggesting "Ferns Through a Spy-glass" as a companion volume to "Birds Through an Opera-glass." But even the most carefully chosen spots are not safe from invasion, as Mr. Bates tells us, for some unprincipled persons, having felled neighboring trees and constructed a rude ladder, have succeeded in uprooting every plant from the Fragrant Shield Fern Cliff on Mount Mansfield.
"Like the plumes of departing summer"
PLATE XXXIII
FRAGRANT SHIELD FERN
a Portion of fertile pinna
The fronds of the Fragrant Shield Fern grow in a crown and the fertile ones fruit in great abundance.
Eaton writes as follows touching the fragrance of this fern and its use as a beverage:
"The pleasant odor of this plant remains many years in the herbarium. The early writers compare the fragrance to that of raspberries, and Milde repeats the observation. Hooker and Greville thought it 'not unlike that of the common primrose.' Maximowicz states that the odor is sometimes lacking. Milde quotes Redowsky as saying that the Yakoots of Siberia use the plant in place of tea; and, having tried the experiment myself, I can testify to the not unpleasant and very fragrant astringency of the infusion."
The following delightful description of the Fragrant Shield Fern was written by Mr. C. G. Pringle, and is taken from Meehan's "Native Flowers and Ferns":
"In the several stations of Aspidium fragrans among the Green Mountains which I have explored, the plant is always seen growing from the crevices or on the narrow shelves of dry cliffs—not often such cliffs as are exposed to the sunlight, unless it be on the summits of the mountains, but usually such cliffs as are shaded by firs, and notably such as overhang mountain-rivulets and waterfalls. When I visit such places in summer, the niches occupied by the plants are quite dry. 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; for the fronds, as they disport regularly about the elongating caudex, fall right and left precisely like a woman's hair. Above the tuft of drooping dead fronds, which radiate from the centre of the plant, grow from six to twenty green fronds, which represent the growth of the season, those of the preceding year dying toward autumn."