A Crested Form of the Lady Fern

Abstract

In the summer of 1916, while on a field trip near Windham, Portage County, this state, I found a crested form of the Lady Fern. The form was new to me and sufficiently beautiful to make a rather striking appearance. I lifted the plant and brought it home. It was first given a place with several other ferns in a small bit of native woods on the college campus. Although assurance had been given that the ferns were in no danger and would not be disturbed during the construction of a new dormitory nearby, the workmen buried the entire bed under logs, scrap lumber, and rubbish to the depth of some six or eight feet before their plight was discovered. After half a day of very strenuous labor on my part, which was a source of considerable amusement to those who had been guilty of the carelessness, the roots of perhaps half of the ferns, all of which were the very rarest species known to the state, were recovered and transferred to a hastily prepared fern-bed by the side of the house in which I am now living. The crested Lady Fern was one of those which was rescued. It took kindly to its new home and has become more cristate each year until it is now a plant of real beauty, Dr. Butters' has shown that there are two species of Lady Ferns instead of one in the eastern half of the United States, neither of which is identical with Athyrium filtx-foemina (L.) Roth, of Europe. He concludes further that Athyrium asplenioides (Michx.) Desv. is prevailingly southern in its distribution, while Athyrium angustum (Willd.) Presl is prevailingly northern in its distribution.