1 84 . NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Ferns 



There are many attractive hobbies to be found among the 

 plants which have no flowers. Miss Amey A. Lillibridge, who 

 is the Fern SpeciaHst of the Field Naturalists Club, tells of her 

 interest in the study of ferns: 



"I first became interested in the study of ferns while on a 

 vacation spent a number of years ago on a farm in the foot hills 

 of the Berkshires in western Massachusetts. I have always 

 known a number of varieties of ferns by name, as Brake, Christmas 

 and Maidenhair but I did not know the very common kinds that 

 we see everywhere. 



On our first walk to the village we saw several large plants of 

 the Maidenhair Fern growing by the side of the road; other 

 varieties of ferns were very niimerous also. Upon speaking of 

 having seen the Maidenhair Fern, upon our return to the house, 

 we were told that a teacher who was interested in the collection 

 and identification of ferns had spent her vacation at the farm a 

 few summers before and had left the collection of ferns, which 

 she had pressed between the pages of newspapers. 



This collection was shown us and a fern book from the village 

 library. I think it was "How to Know the Ferns" by Mrs. 

 Parsons. After we had studied these, on our next walk we were 

 quite pleased to identify the Sensitive, Royal, Interrupted and 

 Cinnamon varieties. Upon walking in another direction through 

 the woods we came upon a rock covered with the Polypody and 

 a little farther the Christmas Fern. 



One day a small boy from the next farm house came over to 

 call, as he did nearly every day, and brought a stiff, dark brown 

 frond of a fern that looked as if it were all dried up. It was about 

 seven inches in length. We asked him what it was and where 

 he found it. He told us it was the fruiting frond of the Ostrich 

 Fern and that it grew next to the wall at the foot of the lawn in 

 front of the house. We at once went out to see it and found a 

 row of the Ostrich Fern growing up close to the wall at the edge 

 of the little brook that had come down through from the cow 

 pasture. 



We were asked if we had ever seen the Walking Fern and upon 

 replying that we had not were told that it grew up in the cow 



