154 The Fern Lover's Compaxiox 



One of the most graceful and attractive of our native 

 ferns; an object of beauty, whether standing alone or 

 massed with other growths. It is very easily cultivated 

 and one of the best for draping. "We may drape our 

 homes by the yard," says Woolson, "with the most grace- 

 ful and filmy of our common ferns, the bladder fern." 

 This fern and the maidenhair were introduced into Europe 

 in 1628 by John Tradescant, the first from America. 



It delights in shaded ra^'ines and dripping hillsides in 

 limestone districts. While producing spores freely it 

 seems to propagate its species mainly by bulblets, which, 

 falling into a moist soil, at once send out a pair of growing 

 roots, while a tiny frond starts to uncoil from the heart of 

 the bulb. Mt. Toby, [Mass., Willoughby [Mountain, Vt., 

 calcareous regions in [Maine, and west of the Connecticut 

 River, XeT\'foundland to [Manitoba, Wisconsin and Iowa; 

 south to northern Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas. 



(2) The Coiniox Bladder Ferx 

 Cystopteris frdgilis. Fili.v frdgilis 



Stipe long and brittle. Fronds oblong-lanceolate, five 

 to tweh'e inches long, twice pinnate, the pinna? often 

 pineatifid or cut-toothed, ovate-lanceolate, decurrent on 

 the winged rachis. Indusium appearing acute at the free 

 end. Very ^-ariable in the cutting of the pinnules. 



The fragile bladder fern, as it is often called, and which 

 the name frdgilis suggests, is the earliest to appear in the 

 spring, and the first to disappear, as by the end of July it 

 has discharged its spores and withered away. Often, 

 however, a new crop springs up by the last of August, as 



