The First Record of Asplenium septentrionale (L.) Hoffm. in Oregon

Abstract

On October 26, 1968 I discovered a population of about 70 plants of Asplenium septentrionale (L.) Hoffm. at Copeland Creek on the North Umpqua River in Douglas County, while on a trip to collect the endemic monotypic Kalmiopsis leachiana (Hend.) Rehder, an interesting member of the heath family native only to southwestern Oregon. About sixty plants of A. septentrionale were growing in rock crevices around the south side of a badly weathered vescicular quartz boulder just above a number of Kalmiopsis plants. About 75 feet down the hill another rock of similar composition was discovered with another eleven plants on it. The site is at 2,320 feet elevation with a southerly exposure although the boulders are shaded by Douglas fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco, and Sugar Pine, Pinus lambertiana Dougl. In Colorado A. septentrionale is found at higher elevations, 5,000 to 8,000 feet (Harrington, 1964). This distinctive amphi-atlantic species of Asplenium is found in Europe, Central Asia, and Western North America. In the Western Hemisphere it is known from the east slope of the Rocky iMountains from South Dakota and Wyoming south to western Oklahoma New Mexico, Arizona, and Baja California. Kearney and Peebles (1960) report it from California, and Hulten (1958) shows it on his distribution map as occurring in central California near the Nevada border, although no specimens are cited by either source. The California locality is probably the collection by J. T. Howell (17803) reported by Ewan (1943). Howell collected A. septentrionale in crevices of granite rocks above Columbine Lake below Sawtooth Pass, east of Mineral King in Tulare County south