7. CLIMBING FERN. CREEPING FERN. HARTFORD FERN
Lygodium palmatum
Massachusetts and southward, in moist thickets and open woods. Stalks slender and twining.
Fronds.—Climbing and twining, one to three feet long, divided into lobed, rounded, heart-shaped, short-stalked segments; fruit-clusters, growing at the summit of the frond, ripening in September.
The Climbing Fern is still found occasionally in moist thickets and open woods from Massachusetts southward, but at one time it was picked so recklessly for decorative purposes that it was almost exterminated.
In 1869 the legislature of Connecticut passed for its protection a special law which was embodied in the revision of the statutes of 1875, "perhaps the only instance in statute law," Dr. Eaton remarks, "where a plant has received special legal protection solely on account of its beauty."
I have never seen the plant growing, but remember that when a child my home in New York was abundantly decorated with the pressed fronds which had been brought from Hartford for the purpose. Even in that lifeless condition their grace and beauty made a deep impression on my mind.
Part of fertile pinnule
Mr. Saunders has described it as he found it growing in company with Schizæa, in the New Jersey pine barrens:
"Lygodium palmatum ... is one of the loveliest of American plants, with twining stem adorned with palmate leaflets, bearing small resemblance to the popular idea of a fern. It loves the shaded, mossy banks of the quiet streams whose cool, clear, amber waters, murmuring over beds of pure white sand, are so characteristic of the pine country. There the graceful fronds are to be found, sometimes clambering a yard high over the bushes and cat-briers; sometimes trailing down the bank until their tips touch the surface of the water.
"The Lygodium is reckoned among the rare plants of the region—though often growing in good-sized patches when found at all—and is getting rarer. Many of the localities which knew it once now know it no more, both because of the depredations of ruthless collectors, and, to some extent, probably, the ravages of fire. The plant is in its prime in early fall, but may be looked for up to the time of killing frosts."