The Fern Lover's Companion / A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada

by George Henry Tilton

WOOLSON, GRACE A. Ferns and How to Grow Them. Doubleday, Page & Co. New York, 1909.

WRIGHT, MABEL O. Flowers and Ferns in Their Haunts. Macmillan & Co. New York, 1901.

"Fringing the stream at every turn,
Swung low the waving fronds of fern."
WHITTIER.]

[TIMES OF THE FRUITING OF FERNS]

"Ah! well I mind the calendar
Faithful through a thousand years
Of the painted race of flowers."--EMERSON.

Compiled from Dodge's "Ferns and Fern Allies of New England"

May 25. Little Grape Fern. Interrupted Fern.
May 30. Cinnamon Fern.
June 5. Ostrich Fern.
June 10. Frondosa variety of Cinnamon Fern.
June 15. Matricary Grape Fern.
June 20. Royal Fern. Interrupted Fern.
June 25. Rattlesnake Fern.
June 30. Oak Fern. Spinulose Wood Fern and Varieties.
July 5. Fragile Bladder Fern. Christmas Fern.
July 10. Long Beech Fern. Crested Shield Fern. Boott's
Shield Fern.
July 15. Moonwort. Virginia Chain Fern. Adder's
Tongue. Crested Marginal Shield Fern.
July 20. Slender Cliff Brake. Blunt-Lobed Woodsia.
July 25. Purple Cliff Brake. Bulblet Bladder Fern.
Mountain Spleen wort.
July 30. Goldie's Shield Fern. Marginal Shield Fern.
Clinton's Wood Fern.
August 5. Wall Rue. Walking Fern. Lady Fern.
August 10. Alpine Woodsia. Smooth Woodsia. Common
Polypody. Maidenhair Fern. Fragrant
Shield Fern. Scott's Spleenwort. Braun's
Holly Fern.
August 15. Rusty Woodsia. Silvery Spleen wort. Lance-leaved
Grape Fern.
August 20. Ebony and Maidenhair Spleenworts. Hayscented
Fern. New York Fern.
August 25. Broad Beech Fern.
August 30. Marsh Fern.
September 5. Bracken or Brake.
September 10. Climbing Fern. Narrow-leaved Spleenwort.
September 15. Massachusetts Fern. Green Spleenwort. Sensitive
Fern. Ternate Grape Fern.
September 30. Narrow-leaved Chain Fern.

[GLOSSARY]

ACÙMINATE. Gradually tapering to a point.
ACÙLEATE. Prickly. Beset with prickles.
ACUTE. Sharp pointed, but not tapering.
ADVENTÍTIOUS. Irregular, incidental. Growing out
of the usual or normal position.
ANÀSTOMOSING. Connected by cross veins and forming
a network as in the Sensitive
ferns.
ÀNNULUS. A jointed, elastic ring surrounding
the spore cases in most ferns.
ANTHERÍDIA. The male organs on a prothallium.
APEX The top or pointed end of leaf or frond.
(plu. APICES).
ARCHEGÒNIA. The female organs on a prothallium.
ARÈOLA. A space formed by intersecting
veins; a mesh.
AURICLE. An ear-shaped lobe at the base.
ARTÍCULATE. Jointed; having a joint or node.
AXIL. The angle formed by a leaf or
branch with the stem.
BI (Latin, Two, twice, doubly.
bis,
twice).
BLADE. The expanded, leafy portion of a frond.
BULBLET. A small bulb, borne on a leaf or in
its axil.
CAUDATE. With a slender, tail-like appendage.
CAUDEX. A trunk or stock of a plant; especially
of a tree fern.
CHAFF. Thin, dry scales of a yellowish-brown
color.
CHLÒROPHYLL. The green coloring matter of plants.
CÍLIATE. Fringed with fine hairs.
CÍRCINATE. Coiled downward from the apex, as
in the young fronds of a fern.
CLAVATE. Club-shaped.
COMPOUND. Divided into two or more parts.
CONFLUENT. Blended together.
CORDATE. Heart-shaped.
CRENATE. Scalloped with rounded teeth; said of margins.
CRÒSIER. An uncoiling frond.
CÙNEATE. Wedge-shaped.
CÚSPIDATE. Hard pointed, tipped with a cusp.
DECIDUOUS. Falling away when done growing--not evergreen.
DECOMPOUND. More than once compounded or divided.
DECURRENT. Running down the stem below the
point of insertion, as the bases of some pinnæ.
DECUMBENT. Not erect; trailing, bending along
the ground, but with the apex ascending.
DEFLEXED. Bent or turned abruptly downward.
DENTATE. Toothed. Having the teeth of a
margin directed outward.
DICHÓTOMOUS. Forking regularly in pairs.
DIMÓRPHOUS. Of two forms; said of ferns whose
fertile fronds are unlike the sterile.
EMÀRGINATE. Notched at the apex.
ENTIRE. Without divisions, lobes, or teeth.
FALCATE. Scythe-shaped, slightly curved upward.
FERTILE. Bearing spores.
FÍLIFORM. Thread-like; long, slender, and terete.
FILMY. Having a thin membrane; gauzy;
said of the filmy fern fronds.
FLABELLATE. Fan-shaped; broad and rounded at
the summit and narrow at the base.
FROND. A fern leaf or blade; may include
both stipe and blade, or only the
latter--called also lamina.
GLABROUS. Smooth; not rough or hairy.
GLAND. A small secreting organ, globular or
pear-shaped; it is often stalked.
GLAUCOUS. Covered with a fine bloom, bluish-white
and powdery, in appearance
like a plum.
HASTATE. Like an arrowhead with the lobes
spreading.
IMBRICATE. Overlapping, like shingles on a roof.
INCÌSED. Cut irregularly into sharp lobes.
INDÙSIUM. The thin membrane covering the
sori in some ferns.
INVOLUCRE. In ferns, an indusium; in filmy
ferns, cup-shaped growths encircling
the sporangia.
LÀMINA. A blade; the leafy portion of a fern.
LACÍNIATE. Slashed; cut into narrow, irregular
lobes.
LANCEOLATE. Lance-shaped; broadest above the
base and tapering to the apex.
LOBE. A small rounded segment of a frond.
MIDRIB. The main rib or vein of a segment,
pinnule, pinna, or frond; a midvein.
MÙCRONATE. Ending abruptly in a short, sharp
point.
OBLONG. From two to four times longer than
broad and with sides nearly parallel.
OBTUSE. Blunt or rounded at the end.
OÌDES. A Greek ending, meaning like, or
like to, as polypodioides--like to a
polypody.
ÒÖSPHERE. The egg-cell in fern reproduction--becoming
the oöspore when fertilized.
OVATE. Egg-shaped with the broader end
downward.
PALMATE. Having lobes radiating like the
fingers of a hand.
PANICLE. A loose compound cluster of flowers
or sporangia with irregular stems.
PEDICEL. A tiny stalk, especially the stalk of
the sporangia.
PELLUCID. Clear, transparent.
PERSISTENT. Remaining on the plant for a long
time, as leaves through the winter.
PÉTIOLE. The same as stalk or stipe.
PINNA. One of the primary divisions of a frond.
PINNATE. Feather-like; with the divisions of
the frond extending fully to the rachis.
PINNÀTIFID. Having the divisions of the frond
extend halfway or more to the
rachis or mid vein.
PINNULE. A secondary pinna. In a bipinnate
frond one of the smaller divisions
extending to the secondary midvein.
PROCUMBENT. Lying on the ground.
PROTHÀLLIUM. (Or prothállus.) A delicate, cellular,
leaf-like structure produced
from a fern spore, and bearing the
sexual organs.
PTERIDÓPHYTA. A group of flowerless plants embracing
ferns, horsetails, club mosses, etc.
PUBESCENT. Covered with fine, soft hairs; downy.
RÀCHIS. The continuation of the stipe
through the blade or leafy portion
of the fern.
REFLEXED. Bent abruptly downward or backward.
RENIFORM. Kidney-shaped.
REVOLUTE. Rolled backward from the margin or apex.
ROOTSTOCK. (Or rhizome.) An underground
stem, from which the fronds are produced.
SCAPE. A naked stem rising from the ground.
SEGMENT. One of the smaller divisions of a
pinnatifid frond.
SERRATE. Having the margin sharply cut into
teeth pointing forward.
SÉRRULATE. The same only with smaller teeth.
SESSILE. Without a stalk.
SINUS. A cleft or rounded curve between two lobes.
SÍNUATE. With strongly wavy margins.
SORUS A cluster of sporangia; a fruit dot.
(plu. SORI).
SPÀTULATE. Shaped like a druggist's spatula or
a flattened spoon.
SPIKE. An elongated cluster of sessile sporangia.
SPÍNULOSE. Spiny; set with small, sharp spines.
SPORANGE (plu. A spore case. A tiny globe in which
SPORANGIA). the spores are produced.
STIPE. The stem of a fern from the ground
up to the leafy portion; the leaf stalk.
STOLON. An underground branch or runner.
SÚBULATE. Awl-shaped.
TÉRNATE. With three nearly equal divisions.
TRUNCATE. Ending abruptly as if cut off.
TUFT. Things flexible, closely grouped into
a bunch or cluster.
VENATION. The veining of a frond or leaf.
VERNATION. The arrangement of leaves in the bud.
WHORL. A circle of leaves around a stem.
WINGED. Margined by a thin expansion of the rachis.