Fern Miscellany: Brooklyn

Abstract

Brooklyn, of all five boroughs of Greater New York, is probably least blessed in sites suitable for the persistence of native species of ferns. While there are many hundreds of acres which have not been built upon, most of such acreage comprises either salt-marshland or regions of grading and fill. It is not impossible that there may exist some small areas of natural marshland where the Osmundas may be found. I have found O. spectabilis on one of the narrow sand strips which border the ocean side of Great South Bay (Oak Island Beach). Even Manhattan, despite is great encrustations of asphalt, brick, and cement has at least some areas of rocky outcrops, including the park section at its northern end. The Bronx has the hundreds of acres along the Bronx River included within the Botanical Garden and Zoological Park area, where woods of native hemlock and other trees offer sites for ferns. Similarly, Queens Borough, although I cannot vouch for any specific ferns, offers park reservations which carry westward the conditions under which a number of species flourish on Long Island in general. Richmond-Staten Island-is the least citified of all five boroughs from its former state. While I have made no recent visit there, its central areas must still offer sites for the persistence of Dryopteris Goldiana and other related wood ferns, and its marshy woods presumably still provide sites for the Massachusetts fern, the narrow chain fern, and others. In earlier days, the area now lying within the boundaries of Kings County (Brooklyn) must have had approximately the same fern flora as adjacent Long Island regions still offer. When road traffic permits, it is still 148