THE CLIMBING FERN NEAR HARTFORD 109 
should also be discouraged; perhaps the least harmful 
is the gathering of ‘‘lace-ferns’’ to supply the florists, 
for in this case the roots are not disturbed and the plant 
has a chance to grow another year. We have grown, 
very successfully, a colony of the Ostrich Fern on the 
shady side of the house, where it has multiplied and 
spread by long root-stocks. 
Witp FLOWER PRESERVATION SoOciETY OF AMERICA, 
New York BoranicaL GARDEN. 
The Climbing Fern in the Vicinity of Hartford. 
C. A. WEATHERBY. 
This story is in the nature of an obituary. After 
having survived fire and all the natural dangers to which 
a plant is exposed and the further perils incident to 
being a favorite of fashion, the climbing fern, once the 
chief feature, fern-wise, of this region and so remark- 
ably common here, for it, that one of its names is the 
“Hartford fern,” seems now doomed to early extinction 
through the clearing of its habitat for agricultural 
purposes. 
There are several reasons why the climbing fern 1s 
of especial interest. The first is, that it, alone among 
the native ferns of the United States, does climb. Its 
slender, but tough, brown stems, twining over the bushes, 
and its rather pale green leaves, shaped somewhat like 
a hand with the fingers out-spread, give it a wholly 
unique appearance. It is the last of our northeastern 
ferns to begin growth in the spring and to come to 
maturity. The accompanying photograph was taken 
well into the summer, yet the summit of the stem is 
not yet fully uncoiled. The graceful fruiting panicles 
which appear above the leaves in late summer, are not 
ripe till the end of September. .The climbing fern and 
its queer relative, the curly grass, are the only repre- 
sentatives of their family, the Schizaeaceae, native In 
