—23— 



These stations of E. scirpoides are of interest as they 

 mark about its southern limits for the region. It is given 

 in the Michigan flora as occurring in Macomb County, 

 contiguous to Lake St. Clair. This, and the station at 

 Ringwood. are essentially on the same parallel, only a 

 few miles north of there by the shore of Lake Michigan. 



Chicago. III. 



ILLINOIS FERNS NEAR LAKE MICHIGAN. 



By Mary Lee Van Hook. 



I had never thought of this part of Illinois as a home 

 for many ferns. On the cliffs and in the ravines of the 

 Rock River, or perhaps in the southern part of the State, 

 there would be ferns, but here so near the Lake and Chi- 

 cago, surely not. Ferns to me suggested the North Woods 

 where I had spent a summer, or a primeval forest in Mon- 

 tana which I once visited. In these places I had found 

 ferns in abundance, ferns not in the least shy, but as 

 usual as trees or flowering plants. Xow it was that I 

 began to look for ferns in this region, for here they must 

 be sought. I found not only the ferns, but great joy in 

 the hunting. In the early morning to go into the woods 

 sweet with the odor of damp earth and the pungent, 

 medicinal smell of the witch-hazel, now, in the fall, so 

 surprisingly covered with yellow blossoms, surely that is 

 enough in itself. But to make your way through a tangle 

 of sassafras and hazelnut and coming out suddenly into 

 an open space discover masses of lacey ferns, a tropical 

 garden of the fairies, this is ideal ! 



In such an open space, especially if it is low-lying, one 

 most often finds the cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinna- 

 motnea), the handsome fronds in a crown, very often two 

 feet or more in height. The deeply-cut pinnae give the 

 fronds a leafy effect which in ferns growing in the shade 

 becomes even more leafy. Just as in other plants, there 

 is the difference in appearance in ferns found growing in 

 in the sun from those in the shade: the former are always 



