Dryopteris fragrans (!!)

My dissertation research is on the North American species of the genus Dryopteris, the wood ferns (I may have mentioned this once or twice before), and my goal for this past summer was to collect all fourteen or so of the species found on this continent. I succeeded, except for two: D. ludoviciana, which is restricted to the far southeast (mostly Florida, coastal Alabama and Arkansas), and D. fragrans, which occurs mostly in the far northern part of the continent, up both coasts of Canada, to Greenland in the east and Alaska in the west. My travels didn't take me far enough north or south to collect these species. Then, a few weeks ago, my advisor put me in touch with an employee of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, who had collected D. fragrans in central Wisconsin (!) a decade ago. 

If you're at all familiar with the topography of Wisconsin, you know it's mostly flat. The state was almost entirely glaciated in the last ice age, and as the glaciers eventually retreated, they grated the sandstone bedrock down to a nice smooth plane. Except for in a few places... In the center of the state, for example, a gigantic lake was left behind, dammed by ice, which eventually broke. The entire lake drained in perhaps a matter of days, and the force of the water cut channels through the rock in an area now known as the Dells. Above is a picture of part of the Wisconsin River that runs through one such channel. The Dells are very unique in terms of plant life because they serve as conduits for cold air to flow from the northern part of the state down towards the south, and provide refugia for species that normally wouldn't be found in this part of the state because it's too warm/moist. Enter Dryopteris fragrans.

Upon learning that it might still be possible to find this fern in this unique location, I borrowed a kayak from a friend and off we went up the river to the cliffs pictured at the top. Lo and behold, we found it after only a few minutes of scanning those rocks! It's relatively small, and pretty dense, as ferns go. This is a plant meant to endure cold. Its most striking feature is that it's sticky; it gets its specific epithet, fragrans, from the fact that it is literally fragrant. It smells sort of piney, almost like Christmas, and the source of the scent is hundreds of glandular trichomes, tiny modified hairs all over the lower surface of the fronds that produce a sticky liquid substance (about whose chemical composition I haven't a clue). In these last two pictures you can see the shiny sheen of the lower leaf surface, and even some individual trichomes; they look like tiny clear crystal balls emerging from the edges of the pinnae. Really cool!

Samambaia

The Portuguese word samambaia translates as fern. Apparently there is a particular fern found in the rainforests of Brazil that is traditionally known as samambaia, and a powder derived from it is used for its therapeutic properties to treat an abundance of conditions ranging from bronchitis to Alzheimer's. You can see a complete list at this site, though I have to recommend against purchasing the powder in favor of seeking modern medical advice if you have any of those ailments. It appears from the pictures I've found at that site and others that samambaia is a species of Phlebodium (which is not the same as Polypodium, despite what the linked site claims).

Whatever its scientific identity, samambaia has prompted more than medical miracles: in 2003 cellist Yo-Yo Ma released the album Obrigado Brazil, which contains a track entitled Samambaia. The piece was inspired by, you guessed it: the Brazilian rainforest ferns he encountered while in the country. 

You can hear this lovely piece of music for free, and read an NPR Morning Edition interview with Yo-Yo about the album and its inspiration at NPR's site. 

Blechnum spicant

Another beautiful fern from my summer travels in Vancouver, this is Blechnum spicant. It has separate sterile and fertile fronds; the sterile ones look like regular leaves, while the fertile fronds are contracted and taken up by spore-holding linear sori (lower right photo). This is a common fern in the temperate rainforests of the Northwest. 

Polystichum munitum

Another toothy or spinulose Polystichum, P. munitum, or Sword Fern, was without question the dominant fern species I encountered on this trip. I found this fern everywhere I went, from the forests north of Vancouver to plantings on the UBC campus to parks in Seattle. It seems to be the single most abundant fern in this part of the northwest, and it grows huge and lush. There's something about Polystichum munitum, too, that seems to turn whatever space you're walking through into a scene out of Jurassic Park. Look closely at the first picture and tell me you can't imagine a little Compsognathus peeking out from behind one of those huge basket-shaped P. munitums...

Polystichum andersonii

One of several Polystichums I saw on this trip, P. andersonii made rare but lovely appearances in Vancouver and Washington. This genus is characterized by its spiny-ness (botanical term: spinulose), which you can clearly see here and in the next set of pictures of a related species...

Thelypteris qualpaertensis

I decided to start the fern role-call with this species, a new one for me, mostly because it's got a cool name: T. qualpaertensis. The etymology of scientific names is a hobby of mine, but here I'm stumped. I have no idea what it means, as my Botanical Latin book is back home in Wisconsin while I'm here in DC. T. qualpaertensis looks like most Thelypterises I've come across, and I was particularly enchanted by its sori, which looked to me like little blackberries.

Vancouver and Beyond

The ferns have kept me busy the last few weeks, so it's been a while since my last post. I'll try to make up for that, starting today. I'm back in DC after spending several weeks traveling and enjoying the plants of the Northwest Coast, an area of the US and Canada where I've never been before. I attended the Botanical Society of America's annual conference at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, and then spent several days traveling around Washington and Oregon with local fern aficionados.

This post serves as a (very brief) introduction to the types of habitats and plants I saw out there, and I'll follow it up with several entries about specific ferns I encountered.

The pictures above are from a fern foray that took place Saturday, July 27th, to the Lower Seymour Conservation Area and Mount Seymour, north of Vancouver. There are usually several field trips on the weekend preceding the Botany conference each year, and the fern ones are always the most fun (of course). On this trip we visited typical conifer forest at the Conservation area, and as you can see, there were tons of ferns. The ones most prominent in these photos are Athyrium filix-femina (Western Lady Fern) and Blechnum spicant. I'm bad at trees, so I don't know the species that were present, but suffice to say there were lots of them, and they were BIG.

The forest was pretty rich and dense with plant life, including mosses that were draped over many of the branches. Surprisingly, despite the lush coverage of ferns, the fern flora was fairly depauperate (meaning number of species, not abundance of plants). Earlier this summer I was able to locate 15 fern species on just two or three acres at my parents' home, while my list topped out at around 10 species for this incredible forest. It's likely that there just aren't a ton of ferns able to cope with the relatively low water availability imposed by the long winters in this area of the world.