1915] The Ottawa Naturalist. 105 



"GLEANINGS IN FERNLAND." 



By Frank Morris, Peterborough Collegiate. 



Readers of the Ottawa Naturalist in 1910 who went 

 "Fern-hunting in Ontario" with me, may remember that our 

 treasure-trove amounted to 3 7 species. In the course of our 

 wanderings, as I seem to remember, we had good store of plea- 

 sure, and surprises not a few; the charm of surroundings pos- 

 sessed by the ferns forming a spell of peculiar potency, our sheaf 

 of fronds, in the getting and the gathering, gave us communion 

 with Nature in soine of her most enchanting haunts; while in 

 tedding and garnering, these peaceful trophies of ours were still 

 redolent of the woods, and even to-day keep green and fragrant 

 with glad memories of summer days and rambles. 



Manifold sights, unseen or unheeded before, taught us to keep 

 eyes open and wits a-stretch for all the observations and reflec- 

 tions we could make. Some of the inferences that we drew 

 might perhaps provoke inquiry; some of our questions never 

 found an answer: moot points, one or two of which have since 

 cleared themselves up; but nothing had happened till quite 

 lately to jtistify rushing into print. Since last July, however, 

 it has been my good fortune to add no less than six species to 

 our list, and I believe it would be possible for a careful fern- 

 hunter to extend the record to a grand total of 50, without 

 stepping over the border of old Ontario. All, then, who love 

 thes^ most beautiful forms of living foliage, especially in their 

 native haunts of woodland dell and rocky height, are now in- 

 vited to "follow the gleam" once more, and dream themselves 

 back into summer this Christmas-tide. 



One of my first trips for ferns in the neighbourhood of Peter- 

 borough was two or three miles south east into Otonabee, my 

 objective being Burnham's wood. The net result of two days' 

 roaming was IS species of fern: the Oak and the Bracken, the 

 Silvery Spleenwort and the Lady Fern, the Christmas and the 

 Marsh, the Marginal, Crested and Prickly Shield Fei»Lis, the two 

 Bladder Ferns, the two Onocleas, the Adder's Tongue, and the 

 Virginia Grape Fern. A series of tramps west of the city added 

 10 more to my local check-list of the fern-flora,viz. : Maidenhair, 

 Narrow-leaved Spleenwort and Goldie's Shield Fern, the New 

 York and the Hay-scented, the three Osmundas, and two more 

 Grape-ferns — the Little and the Ternate. This June, in the 

 intervals of a day's trout fishing south of Bethany, I found an- 

 other station for the Narrow-leaved Spleenwort and its ''fides 

 Achates,'' the Goldie's, besides having the exquisite pleasure of 



