An interesting specimen of the Fragrant Shield 
Fern 
LEWIS 8. HOPKINS 
The following note attached by the writer to sheet 
number 7084 of Dr. Jennings’ Ontario collection may 
be of sufficient interest to warrant its publication in the 
Fern Journal. The fern in question was collected Aug- 
ust 19, 1914, on a steep diabase cliff on the south shore 
of north Ombabika peninsula, Lake Nipigon, Ontario. 
Dryopteris fragrans -(L.) Schott. (7084). This is a 
very remarkable plant in that it has about 120 (counted 
as accurately as possible without destroying the plant— 
a few did drop off) dead fronds and 10 mature live fruit- 
ing fronds—130 in all at the time of its collection. The 
five other specimens of this species collected on the 
present expedition show 5, 7, 9, 4, and 6 green fronds 
respectively, an average of about seven green leaves to 
the plant including the first plant. 
Using this figure as the basis of the average annual 
leaf production, some of these dead fronds are at least 
17 years old and the whole plant 18 years old. If it 
produced 10 fronds annually, they are 12 years old and 
the whole plant 13 years old. From these figures it 
seems perfectly reasonable to conclude that the oldest 
set of dead fronds is at least 15 years old. 
But this is not all. The rootstock is about 12 centi- 
meters long and for the first 5 centimeters it bears no 
dead fronds. The plant then grew 7 centimeters in 15 
years, an average annual growth in the length of the 
rootstock of 0.466 centimeters. Since the root stock is 
12 centimeters long this would make the age of the plant 
25 years. But there is no means of knowing whether 
all of the rootstock was collected with the plant and if 
not how much is missing. The plant might easily be 
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