Pteridologist /the British Pteridological Society.

Have you noticed that ferns are appearing more often for sale and in the media? It's splendid that they
should be firmly implanted in the public consciousness, but they are so often misrepresented I wonder
if there is a reasonable balance between advantageous exposure and disadvantageous misinformation?

1 shudder when ferns are proclaimed "Prehistoric plants", "Dinosaur plants" or, worse still, "Millions of
years old", just because they have ancient ancestors. So do all other extant organisms and they have all
been through the process of evolution together. Ferns today are what they always were: thoroughly
modern plants. They've just been around longer than flowers. If anything, ferns might have nudged ahead
of the rest quite recently in evolutionary terms (see page 66).

These days, TV garden make-overs usually include a few common ferns as well as one or two of the more
exotic tree-ferns (Newsletter 10, page 80) which have become available in garden centres everywhere.
Dicksonia antarctica and D. squarrosa, with fronds broken, stunted and twisted through maltreatment,
can be seen struggling for survival in the garden department of many DIY superstores next to shelving
crowded with desiccated, moribund Dryopteris erythrosora; D. affinis ‘Cristata The King’; D. filix-mas
'Linearis' (which I detest because of its sheer ugliness - it must be cheap to propagate); polypodies called
Athyrium filix-femina and vice versa; wild-type hart's tongues labelled 'Cristata' and a few other common
wild ferns. The alternative can be seen in some nurseries where stocks of terrestrial ferns are displayed in a tray of stagnant water, rotting
alongside pond plants and goldfish. I have watched gardening programmes disappointed by otherwise highly competent presenters who
taught millions of viewers to plant maidenhair spleenwort in the gloom beside the trunk of a massive tree and hart's tongue (page 69) ina
hastily prepared bog garden, freshly fashioned from sopping wet peaty compost.

he ~ a

James Merryweather - ed.

Where do garden centre tree-ferns come from? They are too mature to have been grown economically from spores. They are collected in
the wild, hacked off above ground level (legally and under license!) as the last of the Antipodean forests are cleared (page 81). They are
saved from certain death, it's true, but purchasers are not warned that a few sharp British frosts will surely polish most of them off sooner
or later unless they receive special protection every winter. Some outlets even provide the extraordinary bogus advice, printed on an
authoritative instruction label attached to the trunk, that tree-ferns don't need their roots, but can be placed without pot or soil on your
patio paving where they will obtain all they need from the atmosphere. It's as if the some suppliers want ferns to die in our gardens.

Common names of plants are delightful and can be useful when a botanical name is inappropriate, but they sometimes cause confusion.
Recently, I heard a gardening guru refer to "the sedge Ophiopogon" (Liliaceae), but then they frequently call members of the genus Carex
"grass"! Am I an over-zealous pedant or should we expect these front-line people to learn some basic botany before they teach? They also
habitually misname the pernicious weed that even pteridologists are known to curse, field horsetail, but it was a Gardener's Question
Time questioner who recently introduced its customary erroneous common name "mare's-tail” (the aquatic angiosperm Hippuris
vulgaris). The experts did not correct him, but perpetuated the misnomer throughout the discussion. We cannot expect these experts to
know everything (even if some of them pretend they do) so perhaps we should forgive them when they get entangled with a specialised
subject, as became evident as the conversation progressed. They started to get on the right tack when they gave this "mare's-tail” the
botanical name Equisetum arvense. That might have been the correct diagnosis, except I don't think E. arvense was the villain after all.
The creeping weed they described increased downhill to become densest where the land was waterlogged, so I wonder if it could have
been one of the wetland horsetails?

BPS PUBLICATIONS: HAVE YOUR SAY

ABOUT BPS PUBLICATIONS

On 7th June 2004 the BPS Publications Sub-Committee had a very creative meeting in Edinburgh. We identified a list of objectives of the

Society's publications: a) to promote pteridology and the Society; b) to record BPS activities; c) to publish original research; d) to inform

and entertain the members; and e) to provide an outlet for members’ creativity. It was resolved that we should ask the membership to

comment on the journals they receive annually, the Bulletin, Fern Gazette and Pteridologist. Please contact the editors to have your Say

so that the sub-committee can consider the improvements you recommend. Continued on page 74
——_——‘iés”m

ADVICE FOR AUTHORS

Pteridologist welcomes contributions written in English on all aspects of the natural history and horticulture of ferns and related plants, indeed,
anything fern-wise that will be enjoyed by a wide range of readers. Please refer to past editions for ideas regarding scope and presentation

ra t=) a J h rs i
SCRIPT: Ideally text should be provided in the form of a WORD, RTF or TEXT file on a floppy disc, CD-ROM (PC or MAC) or e-mailed.

ba pee Pp =) TE ns . Aerie PSE ei : Erie a | L : LVEs
Typescripts can be scanned or manuscripts laboriously typed. However, surely it is not the editor's job to sort out basic use of English. Authors are
expected to use reasonably correct splelIngg, Grammer and pune;tua.tion, and write in such a way that the meaning of the words is conveyed.

One space between sentences and (I never thought I'd need to mention this) one space between words, please a4 ;

CONV ENTIONS: Scientific names should be in italics thus: Polystichum setiferum, (if typed or in manuscript, underlined). Variety names should
be in normal type, capitalised and enclosed in single inverted commas thus: Polystichum setiferum 'Plumoso-divisilobum’. Common names hould be
in lower case thus: soft shield fern. :
ILLUSTRATIONS: As JPEG etc., but I have scanners so please send line art, good photo prints
which | will return. If supplying silhouettes ensure they are not of squashed and shrivelled fronds
are of decent quality. Send files larger than ~200Kb on floppy disc or CD-ROM please, not by si

(accompanied by their negatives) or 35 mm slides
but actually look like the fern they came from, and
mail. COPY DEADLINE: 31st November, 2004
hly fo : “ns hina beat
| y lor errors and ensure you have adhered to these simple procedures before you send it
To discuss your ideas: &% moving home, so not yet known @

PLEASE: check your contribution thoroug

pteridologist@ebps.org.uk (or write a letter)

PE o\\ ok.

TERIDOLOGIST 2004

avs sey

paver CONTENTS

Volume 4 Part 3, 2004

EDITORIAL
Instructions to authors James Merryweather
LETTERS

Graveyard Ferns in Poland and Lithuania

Early Ferning

The Danger of Snow

Ferns Diversified in the Shadow of Angiosperms

Elzbieta Zenkteler 65
Yvonne Golding 66
James Merryweather 66
Yvonne Golding 66

NEWS & COMMENT
Book announcement: A Natural History of Ferns
Woodsia ilvensis Re-introduction Programme
Lophosoria on Arran

Robbin C. Moran 66
Heather McHaffie
Alastair C. Wardlaw 68

Nn
~]

IN THE GARDEN
Ferns in My Garden: Asplenium scolopendrium
Two Cheers for Bracken

Jack Bouckley 69
Martin Spray 70

IDENTIFICATION
Shield Ferns in Cornwall & The Isles of Scilly Rosaline J. Murphy 76
British Shield Ferns James Merryweather 77
Polypodium cambricum in the New Forest Robin Walls et al. 79

TREE-FERN NEWSLETTER No. 10
Tree-Fern Conservation?
Man who named first Dicksonia sabred by assassin
Dicksonia antarctica in London
World distribution of Dicksonia species
Tree ferns on herbarium sheets.

Alastair C Wardlaw ed. 80

Peter Lynch 81
Alastair Wardlaw 82
Alastair Wardlaw 83
Alastair Wardlaw 84
Alastair Wardlaw 85

FOCUS ON FERNERIES
Swiss Garden Grotto & Fernery
Hainsworth Collection at Attadale Gardens

Nick Aikman 86
James Merryweather 88

THE BPS SPORE EXCHANGE Anne & Barry Wright 90

FERNS AS ART: Fragile Ferns Susan Rossi-Wilcox & Stuart Lindsay 92

COVER PICTURE: Hard shield fern Polystichum aculeatum, one of the
subjects of our Identification section (see page 76)

Unless stated otherwise, photographs were supplied by the authors of the
articles in which they appear.

DISCLAIMER Views expressed by contributors to Preridologist are not necessarily those of the British
Pteridological Society.

Copyright © 2004 eden Pteridological Society. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may
S)

be reproduced in any material form (including rat 6 or lt it in any medium by electronic mean

Ww shout the permission ns the British Pteridological Socie

|) GRAVEYARD FERNS ™)
IN POLAND AND LITHUANIA

Being enchanted by the new get-up of the
Fern Magazine | would like to contribute
some pictures towards the next issue of
Pteridologist.

As you might know it is not so easy to
find representation of fern fronds carved in
sandstone or marble.

When I was visiting old cemeteries |
found two interesting tombstones: first at
Sandomierz (a small town in the south-east
part of Poland) and second in Vilno (a
famous Polish cemetery "The Rossa" in
the capital of Lithuania),

ftieibee in Vilno, Lithuania

Elzbieta Zenkteler

Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza,

Instytut Biologii we ie mentalnej,

aniki Ogolne),

sc 13 POZNAN,

Aleja Niepodlegosci 14
POLAN

fo
n~

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

65

NEWS & COMMENT

= LETTERS ™

EARLY FERNING
Many moons ago, whilst an undergraduate at the University of York, | did my
third year project on possible subspecies of Bracken. This of course turned out to
be a can-o-worms but little did I know at the time. To this end, during the
summer of 1988, I took my two daughters on a so-called holiday to Arran where
we trailed around looking at bracken sites. In fact we had a very nice time,
staying at the charming youth hostel at Lochranza.

Later that summer my youngest daughter Amy (then 8 years old) went on a
summer camp to the Forest of Dean. One evening I had a very excited phone call
from Amy exclaiming: "Mummy, mummy I’m having a great time and I’ve
found 7 different species of bracken and I’ve pressed them all in newspaper for
you". Well this was a very exciting prospect indeed. When she returned I opened
the newspaper with great anticipation and trembling hands. In the package |
found seven crumpled fronds. One was indeed bracken but there was also one
each of lady fern, male fern and broad buckler fern. The other fronds looked to
be 3 distinct forms of Drvopteris affinis.

I gave her 10/10 for observation and a Mars Bar but decided to keep quiet.
Amy is now something in the theatre and I work on the behaviour of hoverflies!

Yvonne Golding
yvonne.c.golding@man.ac.uk

SNOW DAMAGE

This year I noticed that a magnificent plant of Blechnum chilense in Attadale
Gardens (see page 88) looked much rougher than usual in spring. Every stipe was
bent and twisted at or just below the insertion of the lowest pair of pinnae. The
reason was sheer weight of snow which lay over 6 inches thick for a couple of
weeks at the end of February. The remedy? I had been greatly amused by one of
the Attadale gardeners who I saw take a broom to the flat sprays of a cedar,
sweeping the snow away. | had presumed he was engaged on pointless, low-
season work creation, but soon learned that snow can seriously damage good
trees, so it's a very necessary job in a show garden. I was assured by the head
gardener that the same process will be applied to ferns next winter if necessary.

James Merryweather

a

A
NATURAL
HISTORY
Sen 7 OF FERNS
“ ee. ) rib
- on ~3 Robbin C. Moran

This new book will be published in
September. It is a non-technical work,
about 300 pages long with 145 line
drawings or photos and 26 colour plates.
There are 33 chapters, grouped into six
general categories: Life cycle,
classification, fossil ferns, fern geography,
adaptations, and ferns and people. It is not
a field guide, but explains how ferns grow
and develop, disperse and reproduce, adapt
and evolve. In short, what ferns are doing
out there in nature. Robbin writes
exceptionally well (see Pteridologist 3:1,
1996) and this book should interest all
members of BPS.

FERNS DIVERSIFIED IN THE
SHADOW OF ANGIOSPERMS

It is not often that ferns make the
hallowed pages of the leading
scientific journal Nature, but in the
April issue a group of scientists from
America, Mexico and Germany report
a new phylogenetic analysis of ferns.
It is based on molecular data, with
constraints from a reassessment of the
fossil record. They suggest that a full
understanding of fern diversification
and evolution using only palaeo-
botanical evidence is problematic
because of the poor taxonomic
resolution of the fern fossil record in
the Cretaceous. Past theories have
suggested that the rise of the
angiosperms during the Cretaceous led
to a decline in fern diversity and
abundance. This new work reports that
polypod ferns, which represent more
than 80% of living fern species,
diversified in the Cretaceous, after
angiosperms, suggesting that this may
represent an ecological opportunistic
response to the diversification of
angiosperms and their subsequent
domination of terrestrial ecosystems.
To read more see:
Nature 428:1 April, 2004
<www.nature.com/nature>
Yvonne Golding

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

NEWS & COMMENT

Many people will be aware that attempts
have been made by the Royal Botanic
Garden Edinburgh to re-introduce
Woodsia ilvensis into several secret sites.
As a UK Biodiversity Action Plan species
W. ilvensis is of great conservation
concern as there are now fewer than 100
clumps in Britain. As a last-ditch attempt
to encourage regeneration three re-
introductions have been made. In 2003 |
visited the re-introduction localities, one
near Moffat, the other two close together in
Teesdale. After an exceptionally warm
summer it was thought that the plants
might have been suffering, especially as
dryness is a possible cause for decline of
the existing plants. On succes-
sive visits it was noticeable
that the Border hills all around
the old Woodsia localities still
managed to produce some very
wet days, and the weather in
the hills was very different
from that nearer the coast.
Cloud on the hill is probably
an important part of their
habitat.

The Moffat re-introduction,
made in September 1999, is in

a steep-sided gully with
approximately north and

south-facing sides. The plants
on the south-facing side were
planted into rock crevices or
on ledges. This is an especially difficult
habitat to plant successfully. The north-
facing plants were mostly planted into
scree. A few were deliberately planted
high up using a ladder, in the hope that
they would not attract grazing animals, but
these were not monitored. Of the, 11
accessible original plants, 75 were still
alive after four years. This survival rate of
65% is comparatively high for a re-
introduction (P. Lusby, pers. comm.). A
few plants were very small, with fronds as
little as 1.5 cm long, and they might not
survive, although the dry summer had been
a good test. One plant that had been found
in the 2002 monitoring had a beautiful
bird’s nest, possibly a grey wagtail’s, built
Over it, and the fern appeared to have
succumbed. Some of the most robust were
growing on scree where there was little
sign of grazing despite the local goat
population. Many of the existing wild
plants elsewhere in Britain are in cracks on
rock faces, but it might be grazing that has
led to this apparent preference as the scree
plants were growing so well. Norwegian
Woodsias frequently grow on screes
(Adrian Dyer, pers. comm.) and this might

nN

Woodsia ilvensis

RE-INTRODUCTION PROGRAMME

Heather McHaffie
RGBE, 20A Inverleith Row,
Edinburgh EH3 SLR

be nearer to the preferred habitat. All the
plants that were re-introduced were
derived from locally produced spores from
both of the nearest wild populations -
consisting of two plants and one plant, not
very large populations! It is because the

original populations had declined to so few
plants that a re-introduction was felt to be
appropriate.

The Teesdale re-introductions are at
two sites with a southern and northern
aspect. The south-facing population was
planted in 1999, mainly into rock crevices
but some plants were put into a block scree
at the base. Seven out of 28 plants (25%)
survived in the crevices, while 19 out of 35
plants (54%) survived in the mossy scree.
Some of the scree plants were in the
middle of what appeared to be vole runs
and they did not seem to appreciate the
volume of traffic. These survival rates are
still very satisfactory. At the north-facing
scree planted in 2000, 48 out of 50 plants
had survived - an amazingly high success
rate. As at the Moffat site, some were
extremely small, but most of the plants
were fertile. This population is frequented
by local rabbits who did a limited amount
of nibbling, but understandably trampled
some plants that were on their regular
routes.

—

As there were no Teesdale plants left
and the nearest locations were Wales or the
Lake District, there had been some
discussion on the source of the re-
introduction plants. Most of the existing
populations elsewhere have very few

plants and there is always the concern that
such populations suffer from inbreeding
depression. It was therefore decided that
the Teesdale re-introductions would be
made up of plants grown from spores
representing all of the surviving British
populations. It is difficult to make
comparisons between the successes of
plants from different provenances as each
planting position has its own unique
conditions and there is no clear indication
from the monitoring data of the relative
success of plants from the different
populations.

A new re-introduction was started in
autumn 2003 at another site in the Borders
north of Moffat. The Carrifran
Wildwood project is an
exciting scheme that plans to
reforest a whole catchment
area. Using local seed, where
possible, trees are being
planted in appropriate groups
to span from the river bank
right up to montane willows.
Above this level was a site
from which W. ilvensis was
repeatedly collected and has
now long since gone. Two
rope surveys on the cliffs
failed to find any more plants
so the first phase of Woodsia
planting commenced in the
autumn of 2003. In the spring
we will also try placing gametophytes into
crevices, which might be a better option
than trying to insert sporophytes.

There is no sign as yet of regeneration
in any of the re-introductions. Survival of
the sporophytes is only the first step
towards the regeneration of a self-
sustaining population which is the only
meaningful goal. There will now be
considerably more spores released into the
environment raising the chances of new
sporophytes. It might be that only a series
of exceptionally wet years favour the
establishment of new plants. We are still
far from identifying the precise conditions
necessary for regeneration.

Until recently all the work with these
plants was done by Stuart Lindsay, Adrian
Dyer, Phil Lusby and Andrew Ensoll. My
thanks for all their hard work. The project
is now part of my remit as Conservation
Officer for Vascular Plants. Phil Lusby
continues to help with the monitoring and
Andrew Ensoll lovingly cares for the
conservation collection held here at the
Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh which
represents most of the genetic variation in
the British populations.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

67

NEWS & COMMENT

Lophosoria on Arran
Alastair C. Wardlaw, 92 Drymen Road, Bearsden, Glasgow G61 2SY

‘

Lophosoria quadripinnata in Brodick Castle Garden on the Island of Arran

Showing the 2-metre stipes and triangular blades with silvery-blue undersides,
swaying in the wind despite being surrounded by a shelter belt of trees and shrubs.

One of the many pteridological treasures on the Island of Arran in the Clyde Estuary is
Lophosoria quadripinnata growing in the woodland garden of Brodick Castle (National
Trust for Scotland).

According to one of the gardeners to whom | spoke during a visit in mid-March 2004,
the plant has been there for at least 12 years. It is not shown on any plan of the garden,
nor do the clumps of Lophosoria have a label. However, it can be located from its close
proximity to a rustic cottage in the woodland, signposted as the Bavarian Summer House
Beside the main path, about 10 paces from the doorway of the Summer House, is a
collection of mostly exotic ferns amongst which the Lophosoria has pride of place. The
other species, some of which were labelled, included Blechnum chilense.
penna-marina,

Blechnum

Dicksonia antarctica, Matteuccia struthiopteris, Microsorum
diversifolium, and Woodwardia orientalis.

The Lophosoria had survived the recent winter well without frond w ithering, ae
the garden having had a -9 °C frost, considerably colder than the aver age of about -5 °C
However, it was the gardener’s opinion that the sheltered areas within the woodland
might not experience such low temperatures. Certainly, the numerous large D. antarctica
tree ferns throughout the woodland had mainly green fronds, as did the many smaller
untrunked plants of this species which had become established from spores that had
settled in damp places.

| estimated that the longest stipes on the Lophosoria must have been close to 2 m. to
which the triangular, quadripinnate blades added another 70-100 cm. So it was a rea

a

ly

68

A few of the
fronds had small, circular sori, located on
veinlets away from the blade margins. The
sori lacked indusia but had ‘wigs’ of
abundant paraphyses.

large and impressive fern!

Croziers of PaphDeone wast ipinnata
at Brodick in mid-March 2004.

These features are characteristic of
Lophosoria and separate it from e.g.
Pteridium, Thyrsopteris and Culcita. The
croziers and stipe bases were covered with
a mat of light-brown hairs, which had
mostly disappeared from the mature
fronds. The four clumps of the plant at
Brodick had in the order of 50 fronds
altogether, some getting on for 3 m and
others only about 50 cm. The rhizomes, to
the extent that they were were
short and prostrate with no evidence of a
trunk

visible,

L. quadripinnata is the only species
within the genus, which in turn is the only
Taxon-
some

genus in the Lophosoriaceae.
omically, it is considered to have
affinity to tree ferns of the genus Cyathea.
It is widely-distributed in Central and
South America, from Mexico southwards
to Argentina, Chile and the Juan
Fernandez Islands. Apparently a very
variable species, L. quadripinnata is
described by Martin Rickard in his The
Plantfinder’s Guide to Garden Ferns as "a
beautiful, potentially dramatic fern that
deserves to be more widely grown".

Only one supplier is listed in the RHS
Plant Finder 2003-04. Spores have not
been offered by the BPS Spore Exchange
in recent years.

Several plants of Lophosoria have been
growing outside for a few years at Logan
Botanic Garden, near Stranraer. | hope
these may stimulate other BPS
members to write in about this species
being successfully cultivated out of doors
elsewhere in Britain.

notes

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

IN THE GARDEN

FERNS IN MY GARDEN - Asplenium scolopendrium
Jack Bouckley, 209 Woodfield Road, Harrogate HGI 4JE

My interest in 'scollies' (Asplenium scolopendrium or A.s.)
started around the early 1980s when | was in the garden
of a well-known plantsman who, apart from many
flowering plants, also grew a few very choice ferns, one
of which was a really beautiful specimen of 4.s. 'Crispum’.
Up until then I had never seen a particular variety and
| expressed my admiration of i

Without further conversation, oe took his spade and dug
up a smaller, but otherwise identical plant, which he
presented to me. | later found that it was the very special
‘Crispum Bolton's Nobile’ (below).

PHOTO: AZU FLETCHER

This addition encouraged me to look for more and the
results of my search have been very rew rding. For
example, while on a field study weekend, | pote a wild
hart's tongue with the features of A.s. 'Ramosum-
transversum' growing on a ledge in a gully. The farmer
who was showing me around shinned up the cliff side, told
me that there were three of these plants and asked if |
would like one. | could hardly say no, and he promptly
peeled one from the surface of the rocky ledge where it
was rooted in accumulated Though planted
immediately in my garden, all was not well. The ramose-
transverse form lasted for but one season and then reverted
to the simpler ramose form. After two more seasons it
became the wild type and remained like that for another
three or four years until 2002, when again a slightly
ramose effect was showing on the fronds. This forking was
visible in 2003, so it might be ramose-transverse again in
a year or two.

A rather nice 'Crispum' in my collection, not as good
as the one mentioned above has, over about ten years
gradually reverted to quite a tatty looking undulate form,
and a marginate form which I got from Reginald Kaye has
on more than one occasion produced two and even three
varieties of frond. Does this phenomenon only affect
scollies or does it happen to other ferns, such as
Veer aye varieties?

02 the A.s. mentioned in paragraph one decided
to = (oahbe a frond which was wider that those on the
parent plant and very nicely variegated. In 2003, it

produced a crown with all of the fronds showing these same
features, so all being well, next season | will remove this
crown and hopefully a few more plants will be forthcoming.
Some time ago I was given a plant Nb at named A.s.

'Verco’, which later turned out to be to be 4.s. 'Verrucosum’,

which has a very warty frond upper wirtacs with undulate
edging. It is quite a nice plant, so I decided to try an
experiment with the spores which it produced in small
numbers. I also collected some spores of A.s. 'Crispum
Moly'. With the aid of my microscope | sorted out a very
small quantity of spores of each and planted them together
in the old fashioned way on sterilised compost, in a pot kept
in a plastic bag. E ventually eight prothalli appeared, luckily
all quite close together. After a few weeks the sporophytes

began to appear. ri sprayed when necessary with tepid water
until, after a few weeks it became quite apparent that one
of the new plants was not 'Moly' nor the 'Verrucosum' but
something had the warty upper frond PLUS a very
crisped fro edge PLUS, as a surprising bonus, a
corkscrew ocidiis to most of the fronds (below).

This plant is now three years old and it shows no sign
of reverting to either parental form, but unfortunately it has
not followed 'Moly' in its ability to produce spores on a
crisped frond. Next season, when there is some new growth

on this plant I will see if a friend of mine will have a go at
producing more of this fern by micropropagation. At the
same time I will try the old method of frond base culture
with which I know some BPS members have been
successful.

[ am quite happy with the way the plants are performing
but one surprising thing 1s the number of natural scollies
which have grown in different places round the garden,
such as at the bottom of a wall, on a lump of tufa and,
unusually, one is among some moss on a piece of gritstone.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

69

IN THE GARDEN

TWO CHEERS FOR BRACKEN

Martin Spray

a

A PLANT OF SOME VALUE
"Bracken, bracken, oh why all this bracken?" bemoaned
George Stapledon in the 1930s. Two centuries earlier, a
dozen commoners of Gilthwaite Moor in Yorkshire were
worried about infringements of their rights to the fern and.
considering themselves "injured therein by this cutting
downe burning & takeing away the said Bracken do hereby

- agree ... to stand by and assist each other in the defence
of ... our right to common upon the said moor...,"!

Not always and everywhere has Pteridium been
considered a major problem. In a recent Pteridologist, John
Grue notes from the French Pyrenees a reviving example
of the role of /a fougére. As is well known, in the past it
was used in many ways, and has long had a place in rural
economy. There are even claims it was planted on some
Scottish islands.* Being rich in potash, it has been valuable
as a means of improving soil fertility and in glass and soap
manufacture. The Gilthwaite felons were probably making
washing soda. In many areas it has served as animal and
human bedding, and as fuel. There is renewed interest in
biofuels, but we still await the handy bracken briquette.4
Before pneumatic tyres, it was much valued for packing
goods, and before it was linked with cancer one might be

70

Hillside, Aston Bridge Road, The Pludds, Ruardean, Glos. GL17 9TZ

tempted to cook crooks "... so young they snap off ... They
have a distinctive smoky flavour - rather like the smell of
Darjeeling tea. Brown bread and butter is the best
accompaniment."” Bracken has even been made into silage
- eaten keenly, apparently.° The plant is normally shunned
by stock, although there are. for instance, about 20 fatal
poisonings amongst cattle each year.’ Despite this
ambivalence, in several small ways, bracken still serves as
a useful resource in the British countryside, especially for
gardeners. This article describes one family’s use of the
plant in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. ;

‘Fern’ grows abundantly in much of the Forest. It is
characteristic of 'forest waste! - unplanted areas - especially
where the traditional free-ranging sheep had limited access.
Since the foot & mouth disease farce in 2001, when all
Forest sheep were killed, some of these areas in the villages.
and road verges, have been mown, because of rapidly
spreading fern (and brambles). We have about half a
millionth of the UK's ‘crop’ of it (estimated at 975,000 ha)
on a steep bank. In 1968 this was still useful grazing land;
when we moved here in 1989 it was becoming wall-to-wall
bracken. In our first three years here, part of the bank was

ee
Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

IN THE GARDEN

repeatedly cut over by sickle. This patch is now developing
as self-sown woodland - with bracken in the understorey.
Although we have had no excuse for making the pig swill
noted in the Forest in the 1840s,° we have found several
uses for bracken in the garden at Hillside.

We are not unaware of the health question, but think we
handle the plant sensibly. Bracken hereabouts hasn’t spored
while we have lived here.

MULCH
We have few tender plants to blanket with dead bracken
against frost - still a frequent practice amongst British
gardeners. Considerable amounts, however, collected as
needed from late autumn to early spring, are used as mulch.
This gives us fair company: it’s been so employed at
Wakehurst Place, for example, and Wisley, and on many a
nursery. This has three main purposes: to suppress, and to
limit germination of, weeds; to conserve soil water; and to
reduce winter leaching and compaction. The local soil, from
sandstone, is a ‘hungry’ one, retaining little humus, and thus
frequently short of water. A further use of the mulch is as
bulk organic matter - another long history. Renewed interest
in using bracken is mainly amongst organic gardeners.” |
have not tried burning the fronds and using the ash; but
Maud (Mrs.) Grieve, writing about 1930, thought that "in

the present scarcity of fertilizers, the high potash content of

the ash is well worth investigating", and a yield of a ton
from 4 acres has been estimated.'”

Fronds cut after senescence and before winter collapse
are available year after year, are easily bundled and can be
carried by pitch-fork. They make a loose mulch, which is
useful for about a year on cultivated soil, after which it can
be dug in. On undisturbed soil, it is effective for twice as
long, sometimes more. Although it can easily be made deep,
it allows too much light to penetrate for total weed
suppression. It is, for «,
instance, of little use
against creeping
buttercup or stinging
nettle.

Rather more
effective are the
collapsed and
softened fronds,

picked off the ground
in winter or early
spring - by when,
some research
suggests, carcinogen
danger has gone.''
This material, of
course, is heavier,
and best barrowed.
Laid in the garden it
consolidates into a
blanket maybe 5-10

cm thick, sufficient to inhibit most new weed germinations
and suppress many established plants (buttercup, alas, only
partly). It will also, laid on damp soil, usually keep the soil
surface moist throughout summer. It works well on potato
beds. Most tubers are formed just below the mulch. Several
organic gardening writers advocate its use thus, sometimes
claiming it inhibits scab and - optimistically! - slugs.'* A
disadvantage of this frondy mulch is that when removing
weeds or putting in new plants one tends to disturb too
much of it.

Better in that respect, and most efficient as mulch, is
part-rotted litter - the material that accumulates in a bracken
stand, slowly decaying, above the soil proper. On the bank
this is typically 3-8 cm thick, under maybe twice that of
ast year’s fronds: a natural mulch, which, with the shade
cast by the fronds, and - possibly - allelopathy'’, makes for
a highly competitive plant. If it is allelopathic, and - even
slightly - slug repellent, it might have a bright future in
organic gardening and farming.'* We have many oak and

sweet chestnut, and some other tree seeds germinate in this
litter on the bank each year, but very few manage to
establish. Even with the litter raked off, establishment is
poor, unless over shading new fronds are kept at bay for
several years. This also allows an understorey of grass to
develop - and brambles to invade.

This litter, paler than freshly dead fronds, is mostly in
pencil-length or shorter pieces after a couple of years. Once
the current or past year’s growth is removed, it is easily
raked loose, and barrowed to the garden. Alternatively,
newly dead fronds are cut in autumn and stacked for two
to three years, by when they have decayed to the right state
for use as a close-knitting, hard-wearing, weed-resisting
blanket. Litter is fairly easy to weed, plant or harvest
through, and gaps are easily patched. It is, in addition, a
quite attractive material, clean and easily removed, and
useful as a rough and
ready ‘decorative
mulch’.

Between litter and
the mineral soil on the
bank, a layer of loose-
fibrous ‘bracken peat’
tends to form, about 2
or 3 cm thick and full
of bracken roots; it
can be much thicker
under old colonies. |
have found little
reference to the
material, or to its
use.'> Occasionally, |
have used it to ‘top
off pots of bulbs. It

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

aS looks rather too

Woodland edge part of garden, formerly a barrow ‘chunky’ to use as
route, one year after 'repairing' with dead bracken. mulch - and takes
71

IN THE GARDEN

much more effort to
collect than the litter. It

might be worth
investigating.
All these mulches,

but especially the intact
fronds - because they
are more readily lifted
off afterwards - have the
additional benefits of
reducing the leaching of
nutrients out of the
topsoil, and of allowing
some walking over the

That said, straw and hay
seem to work better.

sa Rs Pt
Onion and potato beds, and newl
racken paving meets old carpet strips.

Gardening" made very
good hot beds of it. This
is in Philip Miller’s
famous Gardeners
Dictionary,'’ under
‘Manure’. I cannot resist
quoting en passant his
comment under the
heading 'Filices': "Fern.
There are great Varieties
of this Plant in different
Parts of the World, but
particularly in America;
but as they are Plants
which are seldom
propagated in Gardens, |
shall pass them over in
this Place”.

I have no experience
of the use of green-cut

ie. i ie

path:

y made

PATH SURFACING

This leads to a bright idea. Because the litter is hardwearing,
I use it in parts of the garden as a path surface, and it
provides a pleasant, ‘informal’ appearance and feel. One
particular short path, used hundreds of times a year, often
with laden barrows, was 'paved' directly onto compacted
soil, with about 7-10 cm of raw litter (above). It remained
intact and largely weed free for two years, when it needed
‘resurfacing’ with another 2 to 3 cm of litter. It has
subsequently needed rather more weeding, because of soil
dropped on the surface, and partial patching every other
year. It succeeds in the attempt to maintain an unobtrusive
path through a lightly shaded naturalistic part of the garden.
I admit that in other parts, where more soil is spilled onto
the bracken, it is best to remake the path every two years
or so.

A word of caution here: it is
fine on level and slightly sloping
ground, but dry bracken litter on
a steeper incline is more of a
Slide than a path - as our
daughters reminded me, it is
toboggan-friendly!

Two other comments on
bracken mulch and compost:
commercial interest in compost
made from this source is
growing'®, but is. still
insignificant.

Considering its history, and
its potash richness, especially if
cut in June or July, this is
disappointing. In the eighteenth
century, at least one "very
Gentleman in

curious

72

4 ”
" ;
ree he

; «3
-
‘ ‘

in the forest near the end of its life.

fronds, except for
mulching occasionally with part-decayed material that had
been stacked for one or two years. Despite my earlier
comment, some research suggests that even heated to 60
°C, it should be left for 4-6 months.'* It is then relatively
quickly incorporated. So is the soiled bedding from the
donkey’s shed..

ANIMAL BEDDING
Dung and urine enriched bedding has historically - and
presumably prehistorically - been an important agricultural
resource.”

This is one use of dry dead bracken outside the garden.
Richard Mabey comments that it is the 'natural' - and often
free - animal bedding that has "fallen furthest from
popularity". An earlier enthusiast had urged: “where
bracken can be obtained its use

. is a matter deserving serious
consideration. It suits the
animals, though not so well as
straw”.2! A dozen bundles, tied
with binder twine, as big as can
be carried comfortably, are
sufficient for a winter for 4
donkey and its companion sheep.
The only disadvantage seems t0
be the relatively large volume
required to store it. When soiled,
it is stacked outside, and later
used in the garden in the
traditional way - as 'top dressing
cum mulch.

In at least one part of Britain,
one can still see large, round,
brown bales of bracken: in the
Brecon Beacons, several farmers

ee
Pteridologist 4, 5 (2004)

IN THE GARDEN

- mostly commoners, who like those of Gilthwaite are
protective of their resource - continue to bed their cattle on
fern.” How much bracken is still harvested in Britain as
stock litter, and at what scale, I do not know. People are
generally surprised that we use it for this purpose. I would
note that it does not make the most comfortable mattress
for human use, being sharp angled, and rather noisy -
though, again, it is traditional... and apparently gorillas like
Zn

BRACKEN AS THATCH

The final use to which we have so far put this plant is as
thatch. As one might imagine, it has a long history of use
thus. I have not come across any buildings roofed with it;
but there are some fine examples around, judging by the
pictures.** Some thatchers promote it; and it is said that a
well-made thatch of fern should work for 15 to 20 or even
30 years.”

My own inexpert examples had shorter lives. These were
small, man-high, play 'dens', and a badger-watching hide.
Each had a curved form, made with frames of branches,
with smaller, twiggy, branches woven into them. Over this
was laid senescent and dead bracken, about 10-15 cm thick,
working upwards from the ground, and laying the final
fronds across the top. The dens had crawl-in entrances (they
were for play!), and could seat 5 or 6 people. They remained
'dry' inside, except in very rainy periods when they were
never much more than damp. Another den, occasionally
slept in winter, had a 'cheat' layer of polythene over the
frame, with more branches on top of it for the bracken to
lodge into. This was used, with minor repairs to the thatch,
for five years. The others were 'decommissioned' after two,
but could have been quickly rethatched. Two years is as
long as two other structures lasted, elsewhere in the woods:
‘Bracken Ring’ and ‘Bracken Knot' were temporary contri-
butions to the Forest of Dean Sculpture Trail by Stuart
Frost.”°

FOR THE FUTURE

I have to admit I’ve not explored how useful the
products of bracken are specifically for the fern enthusiast.
However, it may be worth commenting that, in ten years, I
have noted only a handful of young ferns on the paths, and
these were, I think, Dryopteris dilatata. The 'fernery' itself
receives an annual leaf-fall, mainly of oak, and the ground
was initially deeply mulched with leaf mould. Only a small
quantity of old litter has been used, on one part of the path.
I do not grow Pteridium there.

In fact, it is strangely tricky to cultivate. But there is
more than enough of it wild! Despite its welcome
usefulness (and cheapness), its seasonal beauty, and its
nature conservation value”’ (I frequently find slow-worms
in composting piles), despite the enthusiasm of some fellow
gardeners”*, despite - even - being told that it is "the best
custodian of unused and misused land ... one of the greatest
producers of fertility on our planet"” (and there is evidence
that it can increase soil fertility’), we would be pleased to
Teves & tle 1668 cw a es te es ee ee ne BRACKEN

NOTES

(Two Cheers for Bracken)
1 This example of a court record, dated 30 January 1726, is
from the Sheffield City Archives, Bagshaw Coll. 878 nr. 1
2 Grue J (2002). Bracken in traditional animal husbandry.
Pteridologist 4{1}, 4.
3 Esp. Rymer L (1976). The history and ethnobotany of
bracken. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 73, 151-
76. Also e.g. Page CN [1988] A natural history of Britain's
ferns Collins, London; and for current usage Mabey R
[1996] Flora Britannica Sinclair-Stevenson, London. A
useful North _ AAMENGSD summary is: gt
<www.fs.fed / /value_
and_use.html. Planting is noted at <www. roundandabout-
mull.co.uk>
4 Lawson GJ, Callaghan TV & Scott R (1986). Bracken as
an energy source. in Smith RT & Lawton JA eds Bracken.
Ecology, land use and control technology. Parthenon,
Carnforth Lancs.
5 Hartley D (1954). Food in England. Macdonald & Jane’s,
London.
6 Aitken AP (1888). Stack silage made from brackens.
Transactions of the Highlands Society of Scotland Ser. iv
20, 209-13.
7 Hopkins A (1995). Factors influencing cattle bracken
poisoning in Great Britain. in Smith RT & Taylor JA eds
Bracken: An environmental issue. International Bracken
Group Special Publication no. 2.
8 Quoted in Rymer (note 2).
9 e.g. Gethin R (1991). Bracken: friend or foe? Organic
Gardening 4{12], 28-30; Schnabel J (1990). The triffid
bracken. Henry Doubleday Research Association
Newsletter nr. 119, 31-2; Bracken fern - it is not so bad
after all! at <www.backyardorganicgardening.com> See
also notes12, 14 & 16.
10 Grieve M (1931). A modern herbal. Cape, London; repr.
1994 Tiger Books International, London; Faust K [2002]
The ethnobotany of bracken fern and implications for use in
the Yucatan Peninsula [Ethnobotany 170) available at

teridium.pdf>
11 Potter DM & Panis R (1995). “The extraction and
characterisation of carcinogens from bracken and the effect
of composting. in Smith & Taylor (note 7), 110-5.

12 Easey B (1976). Practical organic gardening Faber,
London.

13 Allelopathy is natural ‘Chemical warfare’. Plants,
including bracken, are able to inhibit the growth of
potentially competitive neighbours with compounds
washed out of fronds and residual in litter. See: den Ouden
J (1995). Allelopathy in bracken in the Netherlands. in
Smith & Taylor (note 7), 43-6; Gliessman SR (1976).
Allelopathy in a broad spectrum of environments as
illustrated by bracken. Botanical Journal of the Linnean
Society 73, 93-104; Veronica Nava R, Edda Fernandez L &
Silvia del Amo R (1987). Allelopathic effects of green
fronds of Pteridium aquilinum on cultivated plants, weeds,
phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria. Agriculture,
Ecosystems & Environment 18, 357-79.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

73

IN THE GARDEN

14 Donnelly E, Robertson J & Robinson D (2002).
Potential and historical uses for bracken [Pteridium
aquilinum [L.] Kuhn] in organic agriculture. In Powell et
al. eds UK organic research 2002, 255-56, available at
<www.organic.aber.ac.uk>; see also:

L/ 1/ iTl..2

MSc. htm>

<WWw.sac.ac Pp g
<www.abdn.ac.uk/~soi456/aucoa/bracken.htm.>

15 The references I had, I’ve lost. Any information
welcome.

16 Milliken W & Bridgewater S (2001). Flora Celtica.
Sustainable development of Scottish plants. Scottish
Executive Central Research Unit, Edinburgh, and
<www.scotland.gov.uk/cru/kd0 I /orange/sdsp.00
Pitman R (1995). Bracken compost: a substitute for peat? in
Smith & Taylor (note 7), 191-6; Pitman R & Webber J
(1998). Bracken as a peat alternative. Forestry Authority
Practice Note, Forestry Commission, Edinburgh, and
<www.forestry.gov.uk>.

17 Miller P (1759). The gardener's dictionary. 3rd ed.
London.

asp-:
i aie

18 Pitman [read 16].
19 Russell EJ (1908). On the use of bracken as litter
Journal of the Board of Agriculture 15[7], 841-7.

20 Mabey R (1977). Plants with a purpose. Collins,
London.

21 Russell, note 19.

22 Davies J (2003). personal communication; Brecon
Beacons National Park farming advisor. Mabey (note 2)
names only the “Welsh Borders” in this regard.

23 Noted in Faust [read 10].

24 The Roundhouse Project <www.theroundhouse.org>

25 Rymer, note 2; <www.thatching.net>

26 Martin R (1990). The sculpted forest. Redcliffe, Bristol.
27 e.g. Pakeman RJ & Marrs RH (1992). The conservation
of bracken /Preridium aquilinum [L.] Kuhn]-dominated
communities in the -- and an assessment of the
ecological impact of bracken expansion or its removal
Biological Conservation 62, 101-14; Senior Technical
Officer’s Group, Wales (1988). Bracken in Wales Cyngor
Gwarchod Natur, Bangor; Thomas RW (1995). Bracken
management in the Peak District - a local code of practice
in Smith & Taylor (note 7), 182-90.

28 Dutton G (1994). In praise of bracken The Garden.
December 578-9.

29 Haworth-Booth M (1961) The flowering shrub garden
today. Country Life, London.

30 Marrs RH, Lowday JE, Jarvis L, Gough MW &
Rowland AP (1992). Control of bracken and the restoration
of heathland. IV. Effects of bracken control and heathland
restoration treatments on nutrient distribution and soil
chemistry. Journal of applied Ecology 29[ 1}, 218-25.

HAVE YOUR SAY

BPS PUBLICATIONS: HAVE YOUR SAY continued

ABOUT PTERIDOLOGIST

Production of Preridologist is an evolutionary process. Lessons
are learned en route or by hard criticism, and new ideas constantly
arise, which stimulate minor creative changes to incorporate
within the basic design framework. As editor and designer I am
constantly learning and I expect to continue learning indefinitely,

It has become evident to the BPS publications sub-committee
that articles which report original research might be better suited
to The Fern Gazette, so the promised one about Bradbury's nature
prints of 1854 has already been transferred. Others are too long,
too detailed or too verbose. Too many pages per article have been
used and print in them and others has had to be made smaller and
tighter than is desirable. Pictures - one reason we now have full
colour - are often too small to express what they might do really
well if given a fair amount of page space. Indeed, pictures can tell
much of a story painlessly if they are good enough and well
presented, whilst complemented by well written text.

The appearance of several of last year's articles changed
dramatically during preparation. My sternest critic (who is also
my staunchest supporter) metaphorically stood at my shoulder as |
removed unnecessary pictures, and cropped and enlarged the rest
to make room for the text and show off the photographic subjects
to best effect. With the authors’ consent, texts were abbreviated so
that readers only got what we felt they would want to read ina
more visually acceptable form, and eventually it all fitted neatly
onto whole pages as well. My designs were vastly improved, but -
and I don't blame anybody else, because it's my work - I find some
of the finished pages dissatisfyingly 'rectangular’ and, to my mind,
they still look a bit amateurish. A lot more can be done.

If you examine my history as designer of Pteridologist you
will find that when we first introduced colour in 1996 the pages
were open and airy compared with the next edition when I came
under pressure to save money and not 'waste space’. Since I
returned to redesign the magazine in 2002 that density of text has
had to be retained and, in my opinion, we haven't produced a
modern, professional-looking publication - yet. Too much of the
page is still covered with small words with tight line spacing and,
although you get plenty of information for your money, | think
that is at the expense of reader comfort and pleasure. If we ask
you - and that is the intention of this article - we will certainly
find that opinion is divided, but we don't know to what extent. If
you have them, please compare the 1996 and 1997 editions and,
forgetting about content, decide which you prefer to read. Next,
with that in mind, look at the 2002, 2003 and 2004 editions and
then let me know about style improvements you think might
enhance Pteridologist 2005 for you. I will only know if you say.

Pteridologist now has an editorial team and this kindly editor,
whose red pen is often relatively ineffective, will relinquish his
influence in major text revision. A more structured editing system
will soon be in place, ready to receive submissions for the next
edition as soon as you care to send them. You may wish to send
Us a pre-submission, draft version so that author and editors may
discuss its eventual format together. Of course, editorial changes
will be communicated to authors for approval. If you feel you
have too much to say, please ask us anyway. If all of your words
really matter, we can still decide to include the complete article.

Please write to me by post or e-mail and voice your opinions. I
hope that Pteridologist will continue to improve, incorporating
Suggestions from its readers.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

VICTORIAN POEMS |

This poem is printed after the preface of H.C.
Baildon's folio Nature Printed Ferns (London,
L. Reeve, 1869). It is untitled but obviously
about fend even if the title of the hadn't
told us. Only initials (HBB) of the author are
given but H.C. Baildon had a son Henry Bellyse
Baildon (b. 1849) who graduated in English and
then me an author and lecturer in English
language and literature after a spell with his
father's pharmacy business in Edinburgh.
Perhaps he was also known as a poet of sorts.

Ye dwellers on the moorlands,
In woods, by joyous streams,
Curling to kiss the water
That flowing silver seems;
In shady glens ye gather,
With plumage tapering tall;
With graceful-drooping tresses
Ye deck the ruined wall.

Ye raise no odorous blossoms,
No flowers of sprightly hue,
Of azure, gold or purple,
To shrine the diamond dew.
But with a magic shaping
No colours could enhance,
Ye grow in constant beauty,
And matchless elegance.

Grace guideth every fibre
That creepeth through the green,
The work of Beauty's fingers
In every curve is seen.

e

And a reference to Osmunda regalis in another

Victorian poem from Deakin's Floragraphia

Britannica Vol 4 1848, a Francis and Newman

contemporary that I didn't know of until
tly

Auld Botany Ben was wont to jog
Thro' rotten slough and quagmire bog,
Or brimful dykes and marshes dank,
Where Jack-o-lanterns play and prank,
To seek a cryptogamic store,

Of carex, moss, and fungus hoare,
Of ferns and brakes, and such like sights
As tempt the scientific wights,

On Winter's day; but most his joy
Was finding what's called Osman Roy.

I wonder how many west London suburbanites
were "wont to jog thro' rotten Slough"? Not all
would approve of listing Carex as a cryptogam,
though that might explain Clive Jermy's dual
interests. Pedants might quibble about the
istinction between "ferns" and "brakes" but
that crops up often enough. Authorship is not
indicated, so it could be Deakin himself.

Adrian Dyer

BPS Special Publications

May be purchased from BPS Booksales
see opposite page 96

BPS Special Publication No. 1.
A Guide to Hardy Ferns by Richard Rush
(1984, reprint 1987), 70 pages. ISBN 0 9509806 0 9

No longer in print but sometimes available second hand at BPS meetings and
elsewhere.] The book lists, in alphabetical order, 581 species - cape and
oreign ferns that can, or soteneaite could, be a in British gardens.
Typically it gives a one — agraph descr ription of eac specion its
a him of origin, its habitats peri f hardiness
by fern growers in the UK. No [mena

BPS Special Publication No. 2
Fern Names and Their Meanings by J. W. Dyce
ip 31 pages, £4.50 nd pep. ISBN 0 9509806 1 7

+h

itish ferns, in alphabetica

onde ‘io diatom to Woodsia; ni oo meanings of Latin and Greek pr ze
n fern names (e.g. Crypto-, Oreo-, Tricho-). Contains a dictionary of th
axonomic ons used to aga fern fronds and other anatomical features.

Paanmd with line drawing

BPS Special Publication No. 3
The Cultivation and Propagation of British Ferns by J. W. Dyce
ie 41 pages, £5.00 plus p&p. ISBN 0 950806 2

a brief introduction to fern anatomy and life history, the main part of th
plbiation con® with fern habitats in my wild and @ cultural requirements
en. It describes how to grow ferns from spores, vegetative
propeuation, od the few diseases to whi ch = ms are - ble. It goes on to
ent habitats within a British
garden, and the best of the foreign hardy ferns. Illustrated with black and white
photographs.

BPS Special Publication No. 4
The History of British Pteridology edited by J. M. Camus
(1991), 127 pages, £6.00 plus p&p. ISBN 0 9509806 3 3

This multi-author work by leading pteridologists was produced to mark the
Centenary of the BPS in 1991. Wide-ranging and very readable, it provides a

essential —— nd information on pteridology, including a summary history of
the BPS, through the eyes of fern enthusiasts. Illustrated with black and white
ps aah

BPS Special Publication No.

The British Pteridological ie Abstracts os sii 1894-1905
(1991), 245 pages, £7.50 plus p&p. ISBN 0 950980

A facsimile compilation of the reports and pret aways by the BPS during
its early years and before regular journals or mag; s had been established. It
describes the meetings and interests of fern bavi sion over 100 years ago and
their experiences on field excursions, and especially with the finding and growing
of cultivars of British ferns in the late Victorian era. Illustrated mith black and
white photographs and engravings

BPS Special Publication No. 6

The BPS Minute Book CD (1891-1983) ed. by Barry Wright
(2002), 633 facsimile pages on CD-ROM, £10 plus p&p. ISBN 0-9509806-5-X
This eats pteridological archive documents the birth and changing fortunes of
the — the world’s oldest Fern Society - as recorded in 93 years of the BPS
ies Minute Book from 1891 to 1983. The original Minute ho itself —

1 t valua 7 i
with caper covers and ruled or ntries are in handwriting in the early years

and as stuck-in typescript later. The CD facsimile presents all the 633 pages of
penta ‘Coctailaes p1: eres up to 1983

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

75

SHIELD FERNS
IN CORNWALL AND
THE ISLES OF SCILLY
Rosaline J. Murphy

Of the two shield ferns that occur in
Cornwall Polystichum aculeatum is the
rarer, so rare that unless the old records
are supported by a herbarium specimen
they are difficult to believe. This
Eurasian-Temperate fern (Preston &
Hill, 1997) grows best in Britain in
cool, moist, base-rich conditions and
distribution maps of its occurrence in
this country show it to be more
frequent in the north and west (Jermy
et al., 1978; Preston, Pearman &
Dines, 2002). However it is almost
absent from neutral to acid Cornwall,
indeed the line of division has been so
marked that it is as though it reaches
the River Tamar (the county boundary)
and refuses to cross the

water!

In contrast to this the
Submediterranean-
Subatlantic P. setiferum
(Preston & Hill, 1997) is
everywhere in the county,
growing in woods, on
shady Cornish hedgebanks,
on stream and river banks,
in disused quarries and
churchyards and even
sometimes along those low
Cornish hedges that make
incursions onto Bodmin
Moor.

As is well known, soft
shield fern is extremely
variable and some of us
will never forget the sight
of P. setiferum 'C arrugatt'
along an overgrown, very
damp and muddy lane near

'Typical' Polystichum aculeatum
Frond base top /eft; pinnules above

76

SHIELD FERNS

Rosaline J. Murphy
Reskadinnick, Camborne,
Cornwall TR14 0BH

&
James Merryweather

Through our correspondence, Rose
and I discovered that we were
concurrently bothered by two of our
Shield ferns, she recording the ferns of
Cornwall and I teaching in the north.
Our problems overlap but are not the
Same, so we decided that they and our
solutions would be best presented side
by side rather than combined.

at base

P. aculeatum

Invariably now, |

THE BRITISH

Srond broad
at base

P. setiferum

Par in 1988. However, it is this very
variability that can add so much to the
difficulties of identification,
Cornwall's climate does not help
either. The salt-laden gales, the sudden
torrential storms of rain and the sharp
though infrequent frosts all leave their

tough as those of hard shield fern and
with these plants it is all too easy to
mistake them for P. aculeatum.

find myself
examining the spores of doubtfy!
specimens to confirm _ their
identification. Spores of P. aculeatum
are dark-brown but those of
P. setiferum are smaller and lighter in
colour with a distinct winged
perispore. Only three of the older
Cornish records for P. aculeatum are
now accepted, these having herbarium
specimens to support them. They are
rom:
1. Wendron, near Helston, 1875
J. Cunnack (K)
2. St Dominick, 1868
T.A. Briggs (BM)
3. Carkeel, near Saltash, 1875
T.A. Briggs (BM)

This means that there had been no
confirmed records for P. aculeatum in
Cornwall and the Isles of
Scilly since 1868/1875.
Anne Sleep had written
against the 1954 specimen
of shield fern from Place
Manor near St. Anthony
(BM), "I think this is
P. setiferum". She added
further information in
Support of her statement.
Then the herbarium
material (pre-1900) in the
Museum on St. Mary's,
Isles of Scilly has also been
re-assessed and is now
considered by various
recorders, including BSBI
recorder for the islands,
Rosemary Parslow, to be
P. setiferum and_ not
P. aculeatum as first
suggested.

The break-through came
in 1994 when Mary

'Typical' Polystichum setiferum
Frond base top right; pinnules above

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

IDENTIFICATION

Atkinson, a BPS member, found
P. aculeatum at Phoenix United Mine
near Minions (SX 267720).
Identification was supported by the
texture of the fronds (harsh to the
touch), the length of the lowest pinnae
(half the length of the longest middle
ones) and the pinnules which were
sessile with an acute angle in their
bases. Spores were abundant, dark-
brown and large (40 um) with not a
trace of a winged perispore. The only
problem was in the length of the stipe.
Some of the textbooks give varying
statements in relation to this. In

P. aculeatum - Cornwall

Ee. setiferum the stipe is described as
being "usually more than '/, of leaf
length", or "'/, to '/, as long as rachis"
In P. dcientum it is described as being
"usually less than '/, of leaf length" or
‘'/, to '/, or less the length of the frond’.
Perhaps the length of the stipe,
although generally shorter in P. acu-
leatum, is not an absolutely, clear-cut

P. setiferum - Cornwall

character. Certainly in the recent Plant
Crib (Rich & Jermy, 1998) no mention
is made of stipe length when
considering the differences between
P. setiferum and P. aculeatum. In the
Phoenix-United Mine material the
stipe is quite long and is between 1/3 to
1/4 the length of the rachis. This would
make it P. setiferum but all the other
characters point to P. aculeatum.
Could the explanation lie in the habitat
of the mine material? The ferns are
growing in rectangular pits at the base
of an old lime-mortared wall and one
can imagine the stipes becoming
longer than normal in order to get the
fronds into the light.

The shape of the pinnules might
seem a macro-character that is more
useful than the others. In P. setiferum
the pinnules are stalked with obtuse
angles at their base and a distinct

‘thumb’, the lower edge of the pinnule
being either parallel to the costa or
even overlapping it. The 'thumb' often
has a tendency to hide itself behind the
next pinnule so that it often can be seen
more clearly from the back of the
rond. In P. aculeatum the pinnules are
sessile, with acute angles at their base
and a tendency for the pinnules to run
into one another at the end of the
pinnae. However, the character I like
best shows when one holds the fronds
up to the light. Then one can see that
more light shines through between
pinnules and costa in P. aculeatum
than in P. setiferum.

The 1994 find proved to be the
stimulus for still further finds of hard
shield fern all interestingly and half-
expected, being limited to the far east
of the county, often in association with
the Rivers Tamar and Inny. The most
fascinating and historically interesting
was, however, the refind, of P. acu-
leatum in 2002 at St Dominick. In his
1868 Flora of Plymouth T.R. Archer
Briggs wrote that P. aculeatum was
growing on "a dry, exposed hedgebank
near St Dominick" and also "many
years ago in a small wood there".
R.J.M. provided the information, L.J.
Bennallick identified the wood and
Mary Atkinson found the plant. A
wonderful end to a field day, refinding
a fern that had not been seen for over
130 years!

royedinmiaetma
Archer Briggs, T.A. (1868). Flora of
Ph mouth eG

Hutchinson, G. & Thomas, B.A. (1996).
Welsh Ye ed.7. Cardiff. National
Museum & Galleries of Wales

Jermy, A.C. et al. alate Atlas of Ferns
of the British Isles. on. Botanical
Society of the British telis and British
Pteridological Society.

Jermy, A.C. & Camus, J.M. (1991). The
Illustrated Field Guide to Ferns and Allied
“ate aie Mig Isles. London. Natural

ry Mus

“a at N. (199 TF): she Ferns of Britain
and Ireland. sa 2. Cambridge. Cambridge
University Pres

es Hill, M.O. (1997). The
Geog? aphic cal Relationships of Br — pe!
Irish Vascular Plants. Botanica rnal o
the Linnean a ie 24: 1 - 120.
Preston, C.D., man, D.A. & Dines,
T.D. (2002). in hss of the British and
Irish Flora. Oxford. Oxford University

ress.
Rich, T.C.G. & Jermy, A.C. (1998).
Plant Crib 1998. London. Botanical
Society of the British Isles.

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE?

James Merryweather

We only have two species of shield
fern in Britain and all of us who know
them well have no difficulty telling
them apart. Our other Polystichum,
holly fern (P. lonchitis), is easily
identified by a combination of altitude,
habitat and its characteristic undivided,
holly fern shaped pinnae. If you are
still in doubt, you can check for sori,
the presence of which should

differentiate small P. lonchitis from
the juvenile or 'bonsai' P. aculeatum
that abound to the confusion of the
unaware, but usually in places where
P. lonchitis would never grow.

Juvenile Polystichum aculeatum

Polystichum lonchitis

It’s not the holly fern that raises
problems; it’s the other two (hard
shield fern P. aculeatum and soft
shield fern P. setiferum), and it’s not
me who has the problem, not with
identification itself, but those to whom
I try to explain how to tell them apart. |
don’t so much find that the diagnostics
we have available don’t work, but they
have serious limitations when: a) |
have to provide concise, indeed brief,
mutually exclusive, effective identifi-
cation tools when creating field guides
(Merryweather & Hill, 1991; Merry-
weather & Roberts, in press) and b) in
field course teaching I have only one
of the pair for the participants to look
at.

-

If you tell someone inspecting a
mature frond of P. aculeatum that, in
contrast, the pinnules of P. setiferum
are distinctly stalked, they will reply
that the pinnules of their specimen are

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

77

IDENTIFICATION

certainly stalked, so how can that be a
difference? When is a stalk not a stalk?

If you tell them that the angle in the
pinnule base of P. aculeatum is acute
(the difference between acute and
obtuse often requires explanation) but
that of P. setiferum is obtuse they will
show you in return plenty of
P. aculeatum pinnules which are at
best equivocal in this respect. If you
have the luxury of a frond of
P. setiferum to hand, then it’s easy to
show the unbeliever what you mean
and give them a grasp of the need to
calculate a mental average for these
features, but where I teach, in the Lake
District and North-western Scotland,
only the one species (P. aculeatum) is
generally available, so that’s not
possible. [Yes, I know it grows in
Cumbria, but not along one of my
customary teaching itineraries. |

In my experience, P. setiferum is
the less variable, but my teaching has
tended to take place where it is
uncommon or absent and Rose
Murphy's experience is to the contrary!

Angle acute or obtuse?
most acute, some only just, some obtuse

Stalked, adnate or sessile?
very dependent upon interpretation

Pinnules of P. aculeatum

Always distinctly stalked?
nearly, but not quite always

Pinnules of P. setiferum

The same problems occur with other properties that differentiate these two ferns,
but none is as clear-cut as the breadth of the lowest pinnae in relation to those at
mid-frond and, perhaps, the length (or shortness) of the stipe. But those features
alone are not sufficient to satisfy a curious student or effect a confident
identification in a key, and others are essential.

I have exchanged thoughts with Rose who pursues similar activities to me at
the opposite end of Britain. Her problem is the converse of mine, for in Cornwall
there are plenty of P. setiferum whilst P. aculeatum is rare. The problems of the
southwest region are compounded if someone with a critical eye searches for
shield ferns frequently. Some specimens of P. setiferum can exhibit features that
can cause even experts like Rose and her team to question their identity or even
to mistake some plants, albeit briefly, for P. aculeatum or something previously
unrecognised. I find myself baffled that one of the most famous Polystichum
varieties is called P. setiferum 'Pulcherrimum Bevis' and not P. aculeatum
‘Pulcherrimum Bevis', for it looks very much like the latter species. On what
grounds is it called P. setiferum? | expect somebody has counted its
chromosomes and found 82, rather than the 164 of P. aculeatum. That doesn’t
change its apparently wrong appearance.

What’s the answer? We must attempt to redefine the identification procedure
so that keys actually work and when using keys a suite of as many characters as
possible must be considered, rather than relying on a single one which might be
quite variable. The remedy for field teaching problems is actually very simple.
The tutor can carry some examples of both or at least the absent species. They
can be pressed fronds, laminated to protect them from the weather, rucksack
crumpling and the probing fingers of generations of students, and everyone can
receive a photocopied handout showing ‘typical’ fronds, pinnae and pinnules.

If only the word 'typical' were relevant or useful. When you teach - or rather,
when you want people to /earn - you soon discover that there’s no such thing
as 'typical', and if you’re rash enough to use the word, there’s always someone
who will very reasonably expose the exceptions and dash your precious
diagnostic absolute in pieces like a potter's vessel. 'Typical' is of no more use
than pivotal characters that are only seasonally present (usually absent when you
need them), subjective characters that render many keys useless if comparators
are lacking (as, frequently, they are) and that overworked and entirely unhelpful
word 'somewhat', which is so often inserted to cover indefinable variability or
disguise the uncertainty of compilers of the identification tools we all rely upon.
REFERENCES continued
Merryweather J.W. & Hill M.J. (1991). The Fern Guide. Shrewsbury. Field Studies
Council.

Merryweather J.W. & Roberts C. (2004). 4 Key to Common British Ferns.
Shrewsbury. Field Studies Council. Jy press.

1 th d and it is certainly interesting if not a ra
permission of the Forestry Commission it has lifted and brought into cultivation. We
shall see if it can be propagated and made available to fern growers

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

IDENTIFICATION

During the winter of 2003/4 the three

of us investigated the polypodies in

New Forest woodlands where one of

us (AB) had found colonies that she
believed to be Polypodium cambricum.
Other than the first record by George
Peterken in 1966 (Brewis, Bowman &
Rose) and a record
Winsland in 1989, all
taxon in Hampshire been from
old walls, and the nearest Dorset site is
a limestone cliff on Portland. The
contrast between a dry, calcareous

Dave
this

from
sites for

have

substratum in an exposed situation and
a moss covered oak branch deep in an
ancient woodland could scarcely be
greater.

By far the com-
monest polypody in
the New Forest is
P. interjectum, and
it can be abundant
as an epiphyte. In
three woodlands we

also found many
trees with fronds
that looked like

P. cambricum, but
mainly on branches
over 2 m above the
ground. We col-
lected a range of
fronds for closer
examination, after a
bit of climbing or

using a long
handled pruning
device. Many of

these fronds did indeed have branched
paraphyses in the sori and Alison Paul
(Natural History Museum) kindly
confirmed the identity of the first frond
we collected.

Identifying plants through bin-
oculars was not entirely reliable and
when we had a number of fronds,
mostly collected as _ putative
P. cambricum, it was possible to
investigate how good the commonly
cited gross morphological features are
for distinguishing between species. We
measured the blade length and
maximum width as well as the number
of pinnae pairs and the position of the
longest pinna from the base. This gave
us two indices for the frond shape:

Polypodium cambricum
IN THE NEW FOREST

Robin Walls,’ Alison
Bolton & Martin Rand

'16 Leigham Vale Road,
Bournemouth BH6 3LR

length to width ratio and fractional
position of the widest point. We added
two characters from the sporangium
(the number of indurated cells and the
number of basal cells) and performed a
principle components analysis. This
separated the two species fairly well

PHOTO: JAMES MERRYWEATHER

Epiphytic Polypodium cambricum
near Lawrenny, Pembrokeshire

but it was not possible to draw a simple
line dividing those with paraphyses
from those without. Were these the
hybrid P. x shivasiae or
misidentified?

We sent a number of fronds to the
referee, Rob Cooke, who confirmed
our identifications and indeed we had
found the hybrid, a new county record.
With a re-examination of the data in
the light of Rob’s letter it was apparent
that the cell counts from the sporangia
and the presence of paraphyses were
good characters, but the shape of the
frond was not.
you are only likely to be right 70% of

just

As a rough estimate,

Other
considered were the degree

the time. characters we
of toothing
on the pinnae, the angle of the pinnae
to the rachis, colour and the presence
of an elongate tip to the frond. None of
these seemed to be much better than
looking for broad, triangular fronds.
Preliminary conclusions are firstly,
that to identify P.
no alternative
under a

cambricum there is
looking at the sori
Prelli (2001)
notes "Identification of Polypodium by

microscope.

macroscopic characters alone is often
uncertain. Microscopic characters, on

the other hand, give reliable results.
They can be easily observed, even at
low power, from

detached, — slide-
mounted sori"
Secondly,
the

despite
overwhelming
impression given by
the usual floras (eg.
Jermy & Camus
1991 or Page 1997)
that P.
is only

cambricum
found on
base-rich rocks (or
when on trees, in
strictly coastal
locations), it 1s
perfectly happy
growing as-— an
epiphyte on oak
inland. In the latter
habitat it
likely to be growing
near P.
with the obvious consequences. The
next questions are what are the limits
of this niche and how widespread. We
would be interested to hear

is very

interjectum

of other
records of epiphytic P. cambricum,
with information on the type of
woodland and the identity of the tree
on which it is growing.
REFERENCES
s A., Bowman P. & Rose, I

Vig of Hanenhire | Harley hocks.
Jer A.C. & Camus J. (1991). The
oon Field Guide to Ferns and Allied

Plants of the sit Isles. Natural History
onal! -ublication

Page N. 1997). The Ferns of Britain —
Irelar a Cambridge University Pre

gael R. (2001). Les Fougéres et Plantes
Alliges de France et d'Europe Occidentale

Edi scien Be

in.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

79

Tree-Fern Newsletter No. 10

Edited by Alastair C. Wardlaw

Convener of BPS Tree-Fern Special Interest Group
92 Drymen Road, Bearsden, Glasgow G61 2SY, UK. E-mail: A.Wardlaw@btinternet.com

The Tree-Fern Special Interest Group is now ten
years old, the decision to establish it having been
taken at a meeting of the BPS Committee in 1994,
with the birth announcement appearing in the 1995
Bulletin [6(4) p. 275].

Martin Rickard circulated the first
Newsletter about a year later, since when it has
appeared at approximately annual intervals. Copies
of earlier issues have been requested by several
members. I hope therefore to assemble the first ten
issues with an index, and make it generally
available.

Interest in tree ferns is certainly not flagging. We
had a very successful and well-attended all-day
Mini-Symposium on Tree Ferns at Kew on 8th
November 2003. As it was part of the regular BPS
Indoor Meetings Programme, a report has appeared
in the 2003 Bulletin and will not be duplicated here.

The Survey of Tree Ferns in Cultivation, started
in September 2003, is still receiving inputs by
members of the TFSIG. So far, 41 species of tree
fern are included. The final report will be distributed
to all those who sent in a return, or expressed
interest.

The attractive 360-page book on Tree Ferns by
M.F. Large & J.E. Braggins (ISBN 0881926302)
from Timber Press is now available. Recently it was
offered on the web by Amazon, at £21.19, p&p
extra.

Pictures, notes and longer articles on tree ferns
should be sent to me for the next TF Newsletter. |
am generally short of copy!

Disclaimer: Views expressed in_ this
Newsletter are not necessarily those of the British
Pteridological Society. ACW

Above: The Norfolk Island Tree Fern, Cyathea brownii (left), in
Melbourne Botanic Gardens. It illustrates why binoculars and a
shotgun may sometimes be needed to collect tree fern spores!

Opposite: detail of Stipe scars on trunk

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

Tree-fern Conservation?
Peter Lynch

7 Fairview Avenue, Earley, Reading Berkshire RG6 1HE, UK.

Visiting New Zealand in March 2003, I was horrified to see the scale of
destruction of native tree-fern forests. On the North Island it was common to
see six- to eight-foot tree-fern trunks being used as an alternative to general
building material. I first noticed it, on a massive scale, in the town of Taupo,
located on the northshore of Lake Taupo.

Palisade of tree-fern trunks, some still alive, at Rotorua Youth Hostel.

Walking along the town lake front, I strolled down some steps to the small
beach to see how warm the water was and, as I turned around, was astounded
to see a wall of tree-fern trunks stretching away in both directions. They
seemed countless in number - thousands upon thousands! At first I thought
what a magnificent sight! But then it dawned on me that this was the result of
the wholesale destruction of native forests.

Tree-fern trunks being used as bunker edging on Wairakei International
Golf Course. (Reproduced with permission of Destination Lake Taupo)

Driving north towards Rotorua from
Taupo, I passed through thousands of acres
of monoculture coniferous forest and
guessed that this is what had replaced the
original native forest with tree ferns. Major
tree felling began around Taupo in 1898.
The first commercial crop forests were
planted in 1925 and harvested in 1950.
Opposite is a picture of the boundary fence
of the YHA hostel in Rotorua. Such fences
were not an unusual sight; the other picture
is of the Golf Course at Taupo.

I have contacted several local and
national organisations in New Zealand but
they all claimed that the Taupo tree-fern
constructions were nothing to do with
them. I am therefore still in the dark about
which agency was responsible. The New
Zealand Government, I was pleased to
find, has recently produced a Biodiversity
Strategy but surprisingly it contains no
reference to the country’s unique,
indigenous tree-fern heritage. Via the
Government web-site I asked why this was
so and was told "tree ferns are not
endangered species and therefore do not
warrant particular attention". | was further
informed, "they are a common under-story
species and are used as retaining material
because otherwise they would be burnt
when the forests are harvested". It was also
said that, "the tree ferns reintroduce
themselves when new pine plantings are
made".

This sounds like a_ reasonable
explanation, except that tree ferns are
much slower growing than conifers, so |
find it hard to believe that they could grow
eight-foot trunks within the time-frame of
a coniferous forest harvesting cycle (25-30
years). Also, in my experience, coniferous
forests are notoriously barren with regards
to any understory. Elsewhere I did see tree
ferns growing under trees at Pelorus
Bridge on the South Island, but the
overhead canopy was_ broad-leaf
woodland.

[ would be very pleased to hear from
anyone who can shed further light on what
is really happening in New Zealand. But at
least it seems that tree fern enthusiasts in
the Northern Hemisphere can feel
somewhat relieved that the importation of
trunks of mature tree ferns from that
country is not in itself endangering the
common indigenous species.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

81

News Flash: Man who named
first Dicksonia was sabred to
death by unknown assassin!

Maybe 'news flash' is a slight exaggeration, since the event
took place in 1800. Nevertheless it is true that Charles-Louis
L’Heritier de Brutelle, a French aristocrat, did meet this
untimely end. Notably, 12 years earlier he had given the
name Dicksonia arborescens to the tree fern which Sir
Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander had collected on the
Island of St Helena. It was growing at Kew where L’Héritier
saw it when he came to London in 1786 and concocted its
Latin name which is still valid today.

Although very rare in horticulture, D. arborescens is
the type species of the genus Dicksonia, not D. antarctica
which is so much more familiar.

L’Heritier was born in 1746 and became Superintendent
of Waters and Forests of the Paris Region in 1772 and a
judge in that city in 1775. As a keen amateur botanist, he
travelled to London in 1786, intending to stay for 3 months
but eventually extending it to 15. His main work as a visitor
was to write a book entitled Sertum Anglicum which
translates from Latin as An English Bouquet (or Wreath).

Car. Lup. LHERITIER, Dom. ve Brureice,
in Ali, Javan. Par. Reg, Consil

SERTUM ANGLICUM.

SEU

PLANTA RARIORES
QU# IN HORTIS JUXTA LONDINUM,
IMPRIMIS
IN HORTO REGIO KEWENSI
EXCOLUNTUR

Ab anno 1786 ad annum 1787 observate.

EA Bid S J 2.5.
TYPIS PETRI-FRANCISCI DIDOT.

Lup. Nic. Paévosrt.
Pantsiis
Seon j Tmeormt. Bannois,

up. Gameren.
ARGENTORAT!, apud Amann. Koenic.

1788.

Title page of Sertum Anglicum which translates as: An
English Bouquet, or Rare Plants, which are cultivated in the
gardens around London, especially in the Royal Gardens at
Kew. Observed from the year 1786 to the year 1787.
RON ibe tennis eK hi So

The French aristocrat was evidently very well received
during his stay in London and expressed his thanks
charmingly, by naming plant species after British botanists.

82

Thus the tree fern from St Helena was given the generic
name Dicksonia, in honour of James Dickson ( 1738-1822),
a nurseryman and botanist who wrote about British
cryptogams and flowering plants. The species name
arborescens means becoming tree-like.

Dicksonia arborescens L'Hérit., to give it its name, with
the authority in standard abbreviation, is endemic to St
Helena, where it grows at an altitude of around 900 m on
the mountain ridge in the centre of the island. It is not an
IUCN Red List species, but must inevitably be vulnerable,
through having such a restricted habitat and not being
available in horticulture.

The ancestors of D. arborescens, and how they got to St
Helena, are complete mysteries. At latitude 16 °S, St
Helena is only 10 x 17 km and has 122 square km of land
surface, mainly mountainous and eroded. It emerged
volcanically from the Atlantic Ocean 14 million years ago.
Famous as the last residence of Napoleon Bonaparte, the
island is 2000 km off the coast of South-West Africa, a
Continent where there are no Dicksonia species (today). In
a westerly direction, but 2900 km distant, is South America
where D. sellowiana and D. stuebellii are found.

D. arborescens is not in trade and has not appeared in
recent lists of the BPS Spore Exchange. It may however be
seen under glass at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh.

Just to round off the story of L'Héritier, he was sabred to
death on the night of 16th August 1800, near his house on
the outskirts of Paris, by an unknown assassin with
unknown motives.

Fewer than 100 copies of Sertum Anglicum were ever
produced and of these only about 50 are known today. In
1963 a facsimile edition, with translation and scholarly
commentary, was published by The Rachel McMasters
Miller Hunt Botanical Library, Carnegie Institute of
Technology, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

See: www.abebooks.com for second-hand copies.

Dicksonia arborescens
in J.D. Hooker's Species Filicum (1844).

Pteridologist 4, 5 (2004)

Dicksonia antarctica
in Central London

I know of several private gardens in London with one, or a few,
Dicksonia antarctica, but to see over 20 of them in a city park was quite
a surprise! The place is Postman’s Park, off Aldersgate, between St
Paul’s and the Museum of London. It is surrounded by tall buildings,
extensively treed, and with what looked like hard, dry soil. Not a
promising place to grow tree ferns!

Es

Clumps of D. antarctica in Postman’s Park. Above: well-grown
specimens, below: perhaps struggling a bit.

On the day of my visit in late March 2003, most of the 21 tree ferns that I

counted had last year’s fronds still green and in good condition — better
than my D. antarctica in Glasgow. But then London is bound to be a lot

milder! Some new croziers were uncurling.

A notice stated:

Dicksonia antarctica presented to the
orporation of London
and planted by Peter Franklin,
Master of the Worshipful Company of
Gardeners on 4th June 1998.

Therefore at the date of my visit the tree
ferns had been through five winters and were
evidently well established.

I spoke to a gardener who was doing a
post-winter tidying up. He said that there was
no automatic watering system for the park
and that he used a hose as needed. The tree
ferns, in addition, had a can of water poured
into the crown once-weekly from March
onwards until the autumn. There was no
wrapping of trunks or stuffing of crowns with
insulation over the winter

Among the smaller ferns growing among
the tree ferns, were Dryopteris erythrosora,
Polypodium vulgare, Polystichum munitum
and Polystichum setiferum.

Exotic angiosperms included Trachy-
carpus fortunei and Musa basjoo, which
looked good with the tree ferns growing close
by. Camellias were in flower.

Altogether Postman's Park is a very
relaxing place to sit on a bench and watch the
tree ferns grow or, as some folk were doing
on 23 March 2003, having a picnic lunch and
enjoying a spot of sunshine through the bare
trees.

What looked like dead tree ferns, in very dry
and cracked ground, under large trees.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

ail ef

83

World distribution of
Dicksonia species

For some time now I have been trying to track down exactly
how many species there are in the Genus Dicksonia
worldwide, and where they occur. The accompanying map
is based mainly on three sources from the web, as
referenced at the end.

Hassler & Swale give the taxonomic authority for each
species as well as the reference to the first publication of the
species name. The other references provide particulars of
world distribution and keys for identification.

For simplicity in what is just a brief bird's-eye view, |
have left out the taxonomic authorities (like L'Héritier for
D. arborescens).

Indonesia Philippines New Guinea
D. blumei D. mollis D. archboldii
D. mollis D. grandis

D. hieronymi

D. lanigera

D. sciurus

Central & S America
D. sellowiana
D. stuebelii

Samoa & Fiji
D. brackenridgei

St Helena
D. arborescens

Borneo Australia
D. mollis
D. herbertii

D. youngiae

New Caledonia
D. antarctica _D. baudouini

Juan Fernandez Is
D. berteroana
D. externa

New Zealand
D. fibrosa
D. thyrsopteroides D. lanata

D. squarrosa

Comments

e The distribution of Dicksonia species is tropical,
subtropical and south temperate. There is no north
temperate distribution.

Total number of species seems to be about 2] or 22.

The Type Species, D. arborescens, is endemic to the
tiny and extremely isolated island of St Helena.

No Dicksonia species occur in Continental Asia,
Africa or Europe.

No Dicksonia species grow in the islands of Japan
or Hawaii, which have tree ferns of other genera.

References
Anon:http://www.geocities.com/rlhill47/ Dicksoniaceae.html

The centre of Dicksonia speciation seems to be New
Guinea and neighbouring islands.

e Australia and New Zealand each have three species
of Dicksonia but none is shared.

The most widely distributed species, latitudinally, is
D. sellowiana, which occurs from 30°N, in Southern
Mexico, southwards to Uruguay, at 33°S.

The two species on the Juan Fernandez Islands do not
occur on mainland South America.

¢ I have not been able to place D. domingensis Desv.
[/t was described from Hispaniola - AMP]

Michael Hassler & Brian Swale: http://homepages.caverock.net.nz/~bj/fern/dicksonia. htm
Wolfram Lobin: www.cites.org/ eng/cttee/plants/12/E-PC12-] 4-03 .pdf

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

Tree ferns on herbarium sheets

Herbarium sheets and tree fern fronds were definitely not
designed for each other. I long wondered how 2-metre fronds
could be pressed and then mounted on the standard sheets. The
answer is: they aren't! Like Dr Samuel Johnson with his
imaginary dog walking on its hind legs, one did not expect to see
it done well; indeed one was surprised to see it done at all!

Through the courtesy of Alison Paul, I spent a day in the
Herbarium at The Natural History Museum in London, focusing
on the collection of Dicksonia. There was over a one-metre
thickness of folders with herbarium sheets, segregated by
geographical regions.

Dicksonia brackenridgei Mett. stipe base and portion of frond
Collected on Western Samoa by W.A. Sledge, on 17 Feb, 1917,
in the NHM (BM) Herbarium.

It was an interesting and rewarding experience. | am so
accustomed to looking at living fronds attached to a living tree
fern, that it took some adjustment to associate the brown
fragments with anything lifelike - like trying in the mind’s eye to
resurrect the live person from an Egyptian mummy which had
been under a roadroller.

Dicksonia sellowiana (C.Pres!) Hook.: Portion of
pressed fertile frond (Brazil, 1914) and accompanying
line drawing, in the NHM (BM) Herbarium.

Photography in the Herbarium being allowed, |
took a lot of pictures. The sample in the adjacent
column shows that much of value is indeed
preserved. It may not look very pretty, but at least
some essential features are there: upper and lower
surfaces of a fertile frond, and a stipe base with the
diagnostic hairs of Dicksonia. The overall frond
shape and tree fern trunk were notably absent.

On some specimens a lot of the details of sori and
venation were well preserved, interpretation being
helped by an accompanying line drawing, as shown
above for Dicksonia sellowiana.

Reading the labels, one’s imagination was taken
to the faraway places where intrepid plant hunters
had struggled through jungles and worked with plant
presses under makeshift shelters in steamy tropical
conditions. One could almost see the mosquitoes
being swatted and the leeches being peeled off. My
reverie was ended by Alison asking if I wanted a cup
of tea.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

85

FOCUS ON FERNERIES

SWISS
GARDEN

Introduction

The Swiss Garden
is managed by Bed-
fordshire County
Council who have
been restoring it
since the late
1970s. The grotto
was in total ruins
but was restored to
its former glory in
the 1980s. As bad
luck would have it,
shortly after work
had finished a very
large Picea abies
crashed down on
the roof, so work
had to start all over
again.

The concept of a
fernery seems not
to have _ been
grasped in those
early days and it was suitably arranged
with pelargoniums, variegated ivy and
assorted bedding plants. By the time |
started working in the garden in 1998 it
was at least ferny, but dominated by
large clumps of Preris and quite run
down.

In 2002 contractors were appointed
to paint and reglaze the building,
which gave me the opportunity to strip
it out and replant.

The Fernery
The Grotto and its adjoining fernery is
one of the main structures in the Swiss
Garden. It was one of the original

ee .
hel >

The fernery in its original state

Nick
Aikman

The Swiss Garden, Old Warden Park,
Biggleswade, Bedfordshire SG18 9ER

features of the garden, built in the
1830s under instruction of Robert
Henley Ongley 3". It was later
remodelled externally and internally
by the Shuttleworths in the 1870s. At
this time the porches and doors were
added and Pulhamite was used to
enhance the interior.

We have no record of what was
planted in the Grotto in Lord Ongley’s
day. Therefore, I decided to keep to the
theme of a Victorian fernery at the
heyday of the Victorian fascination
with collecting and displaying ferns.

The Grotto is a protected environ-
ment and it was heated during the
winter for growing tender and exotic
plants. The main house had its own
walled garden for producing fruit and
vegetables so presumably the Grotto
was purely decorative in purpose.

With this in mind, plants have been
selected mainly from New Zealand and
Australia which are suited to a cool
conservatory, but which would not
survive outside in a British winter. It is
impractical to keep the Grotto heated,
so these plants are unusual and exotic
to look at, but quite happy in their

86

GROTTO &
FERNERY

Situation. As a
safety precaution an
electric fan heater,
set on frost guard, is
installed during the
winter months.

I originally set
out a planting plan
in order to cost the
plants required for
replanting. Having
determined the
budget available I
contacted Martin
Rickard, widely
regarded as the best
supplier of ferns.
With his superior
knowledge of ferns
suitable for the
project I sought his
advice. A visit to his
nursery was timed
immediately after
containers from New Zealand and
Australia had arrived to ensure the best
choice of plants. As my knowledge of
ferns is much more limited, with his
help we substituted many of the run-
of-the mill plants with some very
choice ferns that are rare in cultivation.
Thus, I am happy in the knowledge
that we now have excellent
collection, of which any Victorian
connoisseur would have been proud.

A key consideration was to ensure
that there was a strong evergreen
structure to the planting during the
winter months. With this in mind tree

The fernery in summer 2003

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

SWISS GARDEN GROTTO & FERNERY

ferns and evergreen ferns were carefully set out first with deciduous
plants filling in the areas in between.

The ferns are complemented by a collection of hostas that are a
perfect foil and provide extra interest. Many of them are small leaved
cultivars, which have been bred by a local hosta enthusiast. Not all
plants grow well in this environment but those that have proved to
thrive and fit in with the planting are included as well. These include
Smilacena racemosa, Uvularia grandiflora and Polygonatum x
hybridum (Solomon’s seal).

It is difficult to ascertain introduction dates for ferns, but
consultations with Shirley Hibberd’s The Fern Garden (fourth
edition, 1872) lists many ferns that were available at the time.

The planting is deliberately kept sparse to show off the plants.
However, as some of the larger ones grow there will need to be some
re-adjusting in order to keep the balance. The bigger plants should not
be allowed to become dominant at the expense of the smaller ones.

The wisteria in the Grotto provides extra interest and will be
extended through the season. Climbers such as the passion flower and
the Chilean Glory vine could be planted. Also plants of special
interest at certain times of the year could be placed in pots, for
example choice varieties of hellebores and snowdrops, camellias,
Rhododendron fragrantissimum, lilies and white arum lilies.

Maintenance

@ Beds are mulched with well rotted wood chip or leaf mould at least
once a year.

© The wisteria is pruned. A single pruning before the leaves drop is
the most labour effective.

‘@ New wisteria growth is tied in during the summer and stems are not
allowed to twist round the wire. In this way a woody framework
can be formed away from the glass.

‘@ Weeding takes place throughout the year.

@ Soleirolia soleirolii (Mind your own business) is a constant
problem. It is attractive in moderation, but if allowed to grow
unchecked it smothers all the other plants. This is removed once or
twice a year to allow the ferns and hostas to dominate. In particular,
it is kept off the trunks of the tree ferns.

‘@ Many of the pockets are very difficult to plant. A potting mixture of
a loam based compost with added slow release nutrients and
wetting agent works best. Watering is important as many of the
pockets stay bone dry, but direct watering washes out the soil.
Therefore they require spraying consistently to keep them moist.
Self sporing of ferns is encouraged as much as possible as those
that find themselves a place will do better than those that were
planted. To this end, the stone and compost are kept moist.

The fernery in 2002, before replanting

The fernery after replanting

The SWISS GARDEN
Old Warden Park, Old Warden, Biggleswade
Bedfordshire SG18 9ER # 01767 626236

= www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/BedsCC/SDtopatt.
nsf/We%5CThePage/The+Swiss+Garden

Gardeners’ Chronicle 1896:142

removal of Ferns, about 5 cwt. of roots being foun

severe the sentences were.
RESINS eres

Fern stealers. - William Mobey and Charles Williams, of Bexley, Kent, were charged at Totnes with damaging
Devonshire hedges. The evidence went to show that } anal were en

in an outhouse.
Bench imposed fines - Mobey, £5; Williams, £2 10s; together with the amount of damage. The money not being
forthcoming, Mobey was sentenced to six weeks hard labour, and Williams to one month.

gard with a horse and cart in the wholesale
revious Convictions were recorded, and the

The same issue carried advertisements for a new variety of pea on sale at 3 shillings per pint and the finest named
hardy Rhododendron varieties from £7 10s upwards per 100. Might need some tricky maths to discover just how

Madge Stokes

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

87

FOCUS ON FERNERIES

ATTADALE GARDENS

James Merryweather

The late Peter Hainsworth's Scottish highland home and garden are at Achnashellach in
Wester Ross. For twenty-five years he was a regular visitor to the nearby Attadale estate,
exploring the wild places as well as the Gardens at Attadale House. He was always a
generous contributor of advice and plants, and in 1994 donated some ferns from his
garden. This was just the beginning for what may become a major fern garden.

The entire Hainsworth fern collection is being translocated to Attadale Gardens.
Now, in May 2004, most have arrived and many specimens have already flushed in their
permanent places. Of course, some of those will have to be moved if they show signs
of disliking where they have been put and many others are stored in a temporary bed,
waiting for space to become available in suitable sites. A gigantic Polystichum
acrostichoides has so far evaded capture because of its size and a team of strong-
persons will be recruited to collect it, along with several limestone specialists. Since
Attadale, like Ashnshellach, is situated on almost pure silica precambrian rocks the soils
tend to be very acidic, so a special base-rich bed will be prepared for them.

Peter kept his tender ferns in a polytunnel and housing them was a priority for Nicky
Macpherson, the owner of Attadale Gardens and Geoff Stephenson, head gardener. A
geodesic dome was obtained and erected during the winter. Its frame sits on a yard-high,
circular drystone wall. Geoff and Frances Mackenzie set about landscaping the interior, a
process that required several changes in layout and the shifting and re-shifting of several
tons of rock as the ideal design revealed itself and improvements were made. A small
burn (stream) has been tamed so that it babbles through a rocky pool - the sound is
enchanting - surrounded by beds which are now fully planted with ferns and other
interesting plants (e.g. some intriguing Biaruwm species).

Before the Hainsworth collection could be removed it was my privilege to explore the
whole garden and mark all the choice specimens as a guide for the Attadale gardeners.
There were plenty of surprises and it was with some excitement that I came across the
label ATHYRIUM FF CLARISSIMA by a fern with fronds only just beginning to unfurl. If the
fern turns out to be what the label says it is - and we can trust Peter to have known his
ferns - it will be quite a treasure for the gardens to exhibit. There is also a fine Blechnum
spicant variety (still to collect) which I suspect is Martin Rickard’s ‘Serrate’ for it

or

resembles it and there are few good Blechnum varieties (see p. 78)

My special pleasure was to find several male ferns I haven’t seen before, including
D. crassirhizoma (considered by the late Hugh Corley possibly to have been involved in
the ancestry of the British male ferns); numerous full-sized D. wallichiana (thought by
others certainly also to hav .

e been) and another which is very pretty and I think will turn

Mav 2004. Tet

dia unigemmata

woodland
garden at Achnashellach

Peter Hainsworth's

caucasica (an ancestor of
D. filix-mas). | can’t be certain about the
last yet because I’ve not seen living
D. caucasica and this plant lacks a label,
most unusual in the Hainsworth garden.

n a wall by the house there were
numerous calcicolous plants and, as we
prepared to leave at the end of our last
2003 visit to Achnashellach, I realised I’d
failed to notice several unexpected holly
ferns (Polystichum lonchitis - there is
another huge one in the vegetable garden,
not far from the biggest Dryopteris
oreades you ever saw). There were also
Cystopteris fragilis and Gymnocarpium
robertianum growing in captivity, here in
country that normally supports only acid
lovers. On further investigation, I
discovered that Peter had made good use
of the old mortared station platform which
looks for all the world like a genuine
garden feature.

The Hainsworth collection is now all
but safely gathered in and Attadale
Gardens is poised to become a honeypot
for fern lovers, so if you're touring the
Highlands, remember to visit. Let some
images speak for themselves. >

out to be D.

OPPOSITE: :

1. Inside the dome. The burn and rockeries
planted with 46 - Alastair Wardlaw in
discussion with Geoff Stephenson. 3. Martin

Rickard ident fies u unknowns. 4. The highland
gardener's lament: "So much rain, so many
midges . . . . too many ferns!" 5. Woodwardia

ymme.
Cyrtomium etc. before transfer. 6. The de

ATTADALE GARDENS
Strathcarron, Wester Ross,
Scotland IV54 8YX

@ 01520 722217: www.attadale.com

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

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eridologist 4, 3 (2004)

THE BPS SPORE EXCHANGE

Equipment

We don't know what sort of concept
you have of the Spore Exchange. If
you imagine rows of gleaming fridges
and neatly set out working areas
maintaining dust-free and sterile
conditions, think again. We have a
somewhat ancient but fully functioning
BPS fridge that keeps the spores at
approximately 4 °C. We have been
advised that fridges run most
economically when full, as this evens
out the temperature when the door is
opened and closed. So we have
installed temperature buffers in the
form of several bottles of 'Theakston's
Old Peculiar’ (strong Yorkshire ale to
anyone unfortunate enough to live
anywhere other than the centre of the
universe!). The only down-side of this
is the need for frequent replenishment
to maintain efficiency as a thermal
capacitor!

Our dining table used to be the
work area, but we have now ousted the
microscopes from their desk in the
computer/microscope room.

It may surprise you to learn that the
entire Spore Bank is kept in four
moderately-sized air-tight sandwich
boxes of average Christmas cake size.
Beyond this, there is little technical
equipment needed to run the Spore
Exchange.

Receiving Donations
So how does the Exchange work? It
begins with the donations, as we can't

wt
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EX seh

HOW DOES THE
BPS SPORE
EXCHANGE WORK?

Anne & Barry Wright
130 Prince Rupert Drive,
Tockwith, YO26 7PU

distribute any spores until we have
received some from our keen band of
donors. We then send them out and
hope that the recipients will, in turn,
donate some spores back into the
exchange and so keep the process
going.

In theory, the Exchange begins in
the late summer and autumn with the
slow trickle of donations from UK and
overseas members. In practice, we
never seem to have much of a break.
As many of you will realise, donor 13
is very busy in summer amassing piles
of spore collection packets in the
unused fire-grate in our dining room.
This is an excellent place to air off
spores and dry them out.

Donations are very variable.
Sometimes we get perfectly packeted
and very clean spores in good quantity.
On other occasions we receive
donations taken at the wrong time
which yield few or no spores. Even
some botanic gardens have sent us tiny
fragments of frond without a single
sorus, let alone ripe spores. If you, the
reader, are intending to become a

donor, all we expect is that you send a
modest amount of spore either cleaned
to the best of your ability or in the
original paper bag or envelope in
which the fertile frond was collected.
We are quite adept at quickly cleaning
and processing spores to produce a
sample for the Exchange. Cleaning
involves the sheet of glass and Stanley
knife blade technique as described in
our article The 'Wright' way to clean
and collect spores (Pteridologist 3:4,
62-4, 1999). One reason you might
prefer to send in cleaned spores is that
they will be less bulky and save
postage. But, let's face it: we will take
anything you are prepared to send,
although we would prefer that you
checked that some spores are present.

Database

Having received the spores we then
need to log on the computer who the
donor was and the species donated.
This will enable the tracing of any
spores sent out.

In the past we have tended to be too
busy to do much more than log these
donations and thank the donors. From
2003 onwards we have dealt with
donations differently. It has taken us
several years of running the exchange
to fine-tune the system to be able to
provide what we hope is an efficient
and speedy service.

Previously we were reluctant to
divide the donations into a fixed
number of packets as this would be

Storage of spore packets with coloured paper clips to show accession status.

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

THE BPS SPORE EXCHANGE

time consuming, require large numbers
of glassine envelopes at 2p each and
take up extra space in the spore fridge.
The technique we have developed over
the years now suits us very well. The
donations are divided into small
aluminium kitchen foil packets which
are reasonably spore-tight, so that, we
hope, they are easy to handle when
sowing. A problem with any form of
paper packet is that the spores tend to
stick to the paper, unless it is
greaseproof or tracing paper, in which
case the material is too resilient,
springy and difficult to handle. The
advantage of metallic foil is that it
stays where it is put and does not flick
the spores around to produce
unexpected and disastrous movements
when being handled.

Numbering System
We still use the same

tried and __ tested
numbering system
Where the year of

donation appears first,
then a unique species
identification number
followed by the identi-
fication number of the
donor. There are minor
problems with the
species number, in that
we still have to resolve
how we can indicate
that certain species may
be available as both
garden origin and wild

Society in Japan and China. They have
still not been named, but might be
more widely requested if people knew
that they were hardy, and what they
looked like.

It might also be useful if donors
sending in collected spores could
indicate the probable hardiness of the
species. The label: "Polystichum sp.
3000 m Nepal" may not mean much to
some members who will be unsure as
to whether 3000 m in Nepal is arctic,
temperate or tropical. The hardiness
zone system by the US Dept. of
Agriculture (USDA) is the best system
currently available, even though it is
somewhat cumbersome. [See also
articles from from Fern Hardiness
Symposium, Pteridologist 3:2 (1997)]

Dispensing spores. Note safety precautions.

requests, which has enabled us to
produce information that we and
Alastair Wardlaw reported in
Pteridologist 4:1, 20-5, 2002.

In order for us to identify a species
for which we do not get adequate
supply to service the requests, we have
been going back through the request
forms and entering data for species
requested, but were unable to be
fulfilled. In this way we have
generated a list of frequently requested
but unavailable species for the
particular attention of donors.

The system we now use for
distributing the spores is that, as
donations come in, we break the bulk
packets into between six and ten small
foil packets, already labelled with the
year, species
donation number.
has meant that, from
the beginning of the
Exchange in 2004, the
majority of species
have already been
packeted and can be
quickly extracted and
added to the requests of
members. As_ we
proceed through the
Exchange, these re-
packeted species will
eventually run out and
we will have to spend
time making up a
further batch of six or
ten packets. In the past

collected. In some
Cases the wild collected spores may
have been sent with precise details of
the location collection. This
information may be of use to the
Person requesting the spores and we
are hoping to be able to provide this
information either on the spore list, or
On the sheet of paper each member
receives with their allocation of spores.
We also aim to publish on the BPS
Website photos or scans of unknown
Species on the list, e.g. those listed as
"Polystichum sp. 3000 m Nepal" or
just "Preris sp." If donors will send us
Copies of photos or scans we can get
them posted. We have some lovely
Species collected by the Alpine Garden

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

Once the allocation has been
gathered together, the next stage is to
enter the data in the computer. We use
a simple Microsoft Access database to
log all of the species being sent to each
person requesting spores. Entering
these data onto the computer,
combined with the data already entered
for donations, means that we have
forwards and backwards traceability of
any particular donation. So far, we
have had relatively few requests for
information on the donations of spores,
but we feel it could be important in the
future.

Using the computer database also
means that we can analyse patterns of

we have had to do this,
breaking down of the bulk packets
from the outset of the distribution. This
has meant that we have spent up to
one-and-a-half hours on a single
request. This is why we have tried to
explain that members requesting
spores should allow between six and
eight weeks before getting concerned
that their request has gone astray.
Finally
We hope this has given some insight
into the working of the Exchange and
explains why there can be a delay in
turning the requests around. Please
bear with us, we do our best and try to
offer a good service. One final plea:

more donors please!

91

—

FRAGILE
FERNS

The Blaschka Models
at Harvard University

cae Rossi- Wilcox
Botanical § Muse Harvard University,
mbridge, coe bcis USA

and

Stuart Lindsa
nh of Michigan Herbarium,
n Arbor, Michigan USA

Behind the scenes

Ferns in the form of live plants and as
herbarium specimens are familiar to all
pteridologists. But to see ferns
sculpted in glass you have to go to the
unique collection in the Botanical
Museum of Harvard University, i
Cambridge, Massachusetts U.S.A.
Except you will have a problem! None
of the 800 exquisite glass specimens of
plants on permanent display is of a
pteridophyte. To see the glass models
of the 19 species of ferns and 6 of fern
allies requires a private visit behind the
scenes. The purpose of this article is to
take you there.

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Leopold Blaschka

FERNS AS ART

Glass model of hart's tongue, Asplenium scolopendrium var. 'Americanum'

Origin of the glass models

Known formally as The Ware
Collection of Blaschka Glass Models
of Plants, and popularly (but
inaccurately) as The Glass Flowers,
the collection was commissioned
1886 by George L. Goodale, a faculty
member of Harvard University. His
intention was to create a permanent
botanical exhibition, that would
fascinate the public and help students
understand the plant kingdom. In
seeking an eye-catching display
medium, Goodale found his answer in
the glass models of sea anemones,
jellyfish, and other marine
invertebrates exhibited in the adjacent
Harvard Museum of Comparative
Zoology.

Rudolf Blaschka

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

FERNS AS ART

These zoological glass models had been made by the glass
artists Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolf, who lived in
Hosterwitz, now a suburb of Dresden in Germany. After a
visit from Goodale in 1886, the artists agreed to make a
sample of botanical models which were duly delivered to
Harvard a year later. Although the few models of flowering
plants they sent had been broken by the customs officers, it
was obvious to everyone at the Museum who saw them, that
glass was an excellent medium for botanical display.

The Blaschkas were superbly talented. Not only were
they from a well-educated Bohemian glass-working family,
but they were well-versed in natural history. By the summer
of 1876, when Rudolf had officially joined his father in
business, the Blaschkas were selling scientific models of
invertebrates to museums and universities worldwide.
Today there are nearly 2,000 extant zoological models in
the United Kingdom alone, with nearly 90 models at the
Natural History Museum in London.

When Goodale convinced the Blaschkas to make a few
models of plants during his first visit to Hosterwitz, they all
regarded the project as a short-term arrangement. But the
Blaschkas' models were so successful that the wealthy
Bostonians, Mrs. Charles (Elizabeth) Ware and her
daughter Mary Lee Ware, generously offered to underwrite
a larger project almost immediately. With the Wares'
Support, other models were commissioned, cherry wood
exhibit cases made, and Goodale began successfully
attracting funds to build the Botanical Museum to house the
exhibition, classrooms, laboratories, collections, and faculty

offices. In 1890 with the completion of the building and
only four years into the model-making project, the
Blaschkas signed a 10-year contract to work full-time for
the Botanical Museum. In that same year, the Wares
dedicated the collection as a memorial for Charles Elliot
Ware (Elizabeth’s husband and Mary's father), a Harvard
graduate who had taught on the Medical School faculty and
was a noted naturalist.

Sadly, on 4 July 1895 Leopold Blaschka died suddenly
of a stroke at the age of 73. But astonishingly, in the nine
years that he and his son had worked together on the
botanical models, they managed to craft over 570 species
of plants; that is nearly three-quarters of the models in the
final collection. Goodale, at the Ware’s behest, renegotiated
the contract with Rudolf to allow continued work, albeit at
a much slower pace, until the latter's death on 1 May 1939
at the age of 82, leaving a few unfinished models illustrating
plant diseases on his work table. In total, Leopold and
Rudolf Blaschka created more than 4,400 botanical models
representing c. 830 species and c. 170 families. The Ware
Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants is unlike any
other botanical exhibition in the wor

The glass ferns and fern allies

The first ten fern species made from 1889 through to 1893
(see Table) only depict life-size fronds, or pieces of fronds,
rather than whole plants with rhizomes and roots. Most of
these fronds are also accompanied by one or two larger-
than-life models of sori but, with the exception of

CURRENT SCIENTIFIC NAME
Dryopteris Silix-mas

bracken; common

maidenhair fern

Blechnum occidentale sham
Pityrogramma austroamericana
Huperzia lucidum

esoeienie aureum

larsilea Ay

shining clubmoss

i (as M. elata and M. salvatrix)

Marsilea ition ia
Niphidium crassifolium
Salvinia nata

Selaginella inandigtcil fick
Selaginella lepidophylla
Selaginella martensii
Selaginella rupestris
Asplenium rhizophyllum
Asplenium alatum
Asplenium ee var. americanum
Hemionitis ru

Onoclea saline
Equisetum arvense

dwarf lycopod
walking fern

sensitive fern

Table. Pteridophytes represented in The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants.

An asterisk in the last column denotes those created for the life cycle series.

waa NAME(S)
e fern
an polypody; wall fern
brake
rough maidenhair fern
fragrant maidenhair fern
fragrant maidenhair fern

mock fern; sinkhole fern; swamp fern
golden fern; gold fern

water clover; common nardoo
european water clover; water shamrock
water fern; floating fern

resurrection plant; rose of jericho

american hart’s tongue fern; deer’s tongue fern

field horsetail; scouring rush

NUMBER OF
MODELS
Zi*

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Water clover, Marsilea quadrifolia modelled in glass

Dryopteris filix-mas (the first set of pteridophyte models
made for the collection), there was no attempt to illustrate
the complete alternation of generations in these species. In
1893, the Blaschkas launched into another phase of their
work in which they focused almost exclusively on showing,
for comparative purposes, the life cycle characteristics of all
cryptogamic plant groups: pteridophytes, bryophytes, algae,
and fungi (which at the time were considered part of the
plant kingdom). With the inclusion of the Dryopteris
models made in 1889, four species of ferns and four species
of Selaginella provide a detailed study of the alternation of
generations in both homosporous and heterosporous
pteridophytes.

Whether or not the Blaschkas
realized that most extant pteridophytes
are homosporous, they took the classic
text-book example of D. filix-mas to
illustrate all stages of the homosporous
fern life cycle. This series contains 21
models, including sterile and fertile
fronds, spores, the developmental
stages of the gametophyte, maturing
antheridia and archegonia, and
transverse and longitudinal sections of
various tissues to highlight cellular
development.

The models depicting Marsilea,
Salvinia, and Selaginella were
presumably commissioned not simply
to teach the complexities of the
heterosporous life cycle, but also to
emphasise the extent of ecological
diversity among pteridophytes. The

94

Sporeling of "Dryopteris filix-mas"
attached to gametophyte

beautiful life-size model of M. quadri-folia (above),
accompanied by magnified models of a ruptured sporocarp
and the endosporic male and female gametophytes illustrate
the life cycle and unusual characteristics of a rooted aquatic
pteridophyte. The equally superb models of Salvinia natans,
illustrate the life cycle stages and biology of this floating
aquatic pteridophyte. Air bubbles trapped by hairs on the
upper surface of photosynthetic leaves combined with air
chambers inside these leaves help to keep the plant afloat.
Other leaves which are permanently submerged, and are so
highly modified that they look like roots, act as absorption
organs.

Accuracy of the models

The life cycle series is of special
interest since the Blaschkas faithfully
document what was known about
pteridophyte reproductive biology
more than a century ago. Most models,
including those of microscopic
structures (e.g. the antherozoids of
D. filix-mas reproduced at 2000 times
their natural size), depict structural
details just as a careful taxonomist
would observe them under a modern
microscope. They also included minute
features such as the trichomes on the
margin of the gametophyte of the same
species reproduced at 500 times their
natural size, which probably would not
have been noticed by a casual
observer. However, not all the models
are completely accurate: the mature

Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

FERNS AS ART

spores of D. filix-mas, for example, were mistakenly
interpreted as being pale, opaque, symmetrical structures
with a smooth surface rather than brown, asymmetrical
structures, with minute but characteristic protruberances.
Nevertheless, with only this and a few other exceptions, the
models in the life cycle series have withstood critical
scientific evaluation over the decades.

Sources of botanical information

Particularly with the life cycle series, the Blaschkas relied
heavily on standard references just as they had done for
their zoological models. Illustrations published in Julius
Sachs’ books (one of the most influential German plant
physiologists of the 19 century) were used by the
Blaschkas as they had been liberally borrowed by many
others. In addition, the Blaschkas based their models of the
water fern Marsilea on the published drawings of Edmund
Russow, a botanist based in Estonia, and Christian
Luerssen, a botanist in Leipzig. In depicting Selaginella,
the Blaschkas used the work of another
German researcher, Wilhelm Pfeffer, but
added a little “artistic license” by
combining two of Pfeffer’s illustrations to
show a fuller longitudinal section of the
sporophyll (spore-bearing leaf) and other
significant structures. The Blaschkas also
appear to have taken a little license by
modelling a so-called D. filix-mas
gametophyte with attached sporeling
(opposite) from an illustration of Adiantum
capillus-veneris in Sach’s book. Had they
really modelled a sporeling growing from
a gametophyte of D. filix-mas then they
would surely have shown the trichomes
that are characteristic of the gametophytes
and sporelings of this species (as they
correctly reproduced in three other models
of D. filix-mas gametophytes).

After the main 1893 life-cycle series,
the Blaschkas, as a father and son team, did
hot make any more pteridophyte models.
However, seven years later (1900), Rudolf working alone
after his father's death produced the "walking fern",
Asplenium rhizophyllum, an unusual North American
species with simple fronds which form new plantlets at their
tips. No reference information on the source material has
been found, but judging from the animated style of the
model, it is likely that he used live material.

Three years later (1903), Rudolf again returned to his
Studies of ferns and created models of four more
homosporous species: Asplenium scolopendrium var.
'‘Americanum’, Onoclea sensibilis, A. elatum and Hemionitis
rufa. Unlike the earlier models, we know for certain that
these glass ferns benefited from careful field observations
and collections made by Rudolf himself. Records indicate

that Rudolf obtained 4. scolopendrium var. ‘Americanum'
and Onoclea sensibilis from a nursery in Southwick,
Massachusetts during his first visit to America in 1892 and
that he made detailed field notes, colour drawings, and
herbarium collections of A. e/atum and H. rufa when
visiting Jamaica later the same year.

The pteridophytes did not occupy Rudolf’s studies again
for another decade when in 1913 he added four models of
the field horsetail Eguisetum arvense. Two of these are
stunning life-size models of sporophytes: one of a fertile
plant in the spring (overleaf), the other of a vegetative plant
in the summer. These are accompanied by a detailed model
of a sporangiophore (reproduced at 25 times its natural size)
and by a model of spores accurately portrayed as being
chlorophyllous with elaters (reproduced at 250 times their
natural size). These were the last pteridophyte models made
by Rudolf. They and the 2 models of A. scolopendrium var.
‘Americanum' are among the finest in the collection and
must surely have been modelled from live material.

Asplenium alatum

Research on the collection

To date most of the research on The Glass Flowers has
concentrated on aspects relevant to their conservation and
repair. Specialists were recruited to examine, chemically
and physically, the glass and composite materials used to
make the models. From this analysis we learned a great deal
about the Blaschkas' glass-working methods, many of
which were not adequately documented in the Botanical
Museum archives. The pteridophyte models, like all the
models in the collection, have a wire under-structure, much
like a skeleton, that holds the glass fronds and roots together
in the same way that a necklace would be strung with
individual beads. Each pinna has a wire at its base which
was inserted into the bead-like sections of the frond’s stem

a fn
Pteridologist 4, 3 (2004)

95

FERNS AS ART

and either glued or flame-fused into
place.

Colour in the early models was
achieved by painting clear glass parts
before they were assembled. Even
veins and other minute details were
carefully painted on the glass in the
appropriate colours and shades to
reproduce accurately the natural
appearance of each fern species. The
models made around 1900, and later,
benefited from Rudolf’s growing
interest and expertise in glass
chemistry which he added to his
family’s glass making traditions. In his
home studio furnace, he created the
exacting variety of colours he needed
to duplicate those in nature by making
his own coloured glasses and enamels
from raw materials (quartz sand) and

Sporangia of Asplenium scolopendrium var. 'Americanum' realised in glass

metallic elements such as copper (for greens and browns),
cadmium (for yellowish hues) and so forth. While he made
fewer models, those he fashioned in this period such as the
models of Asplenium scolopendrium var. 'Americanum' (see
page 92) and Equisetum arvense (left) are astonishingly
lifelike; from the exact nuance of shade to the replication of
the fern’s morphology, his skill reveals a perfectionist. Even
a detail as small as the annulus around the sporangium in
the magnified models was carefully composed of clear and
reddish-brown coloured glass threads twisted like
sugarcanes to crown the blown body of the tiny sporangium,
most only 6-8 mm wide (above). The textures and other
details are so accurately portrayed that one constantly needs
to remind oneself that they are not real plants, but
reproductions made of glass!

Although only about 15% of the total collection of glass
ea is in aoe awaiting conservation, this includes all
aeounnes : the pteridophytes and about
100 species of gymnosperms
and angiosperms. All the
other models are of
permanent display in 4
recently renovated gallery
that attracts more than
100,000 visitors a year.

ow
ev

More information on the
Glass Flowers and Harvard
Museum’s other natural
history collections can be
found on the website:

Field horsetail, Equisetum arvense: sporophyte and a single sporangiophore www.hmnh.harvard.edu

i)
Pteridologist 4, 5 (2004)

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