/ 



NOTES FRONT.THE SOUTH. 



By Willard N. Clute. 



Collectors and students of ferns have frequently lamented 

 ihe fact that there are so few persons in the South interested in 

 these plants, but if my experience is that of the average collector 

 it is probable that this part of the world will never be noted for 

 the number of its fern lovers. In November I rode directly north 

 from New Orleans nearly three hundred miles, and in all that 

 distance, although I kept a fairly close watch, I did not see a 

 fern except the resurrection fern. I know, of course, that in the 

 region traversed there are other ferns ; but I cite this instance to 

 show that they are not exactly plentiful. The season, it is true, 

 was somewhat late, but I am sufficiently familiar with the after- 

 math of various common species to have noted them if they had 

 occurred. 



In the vicinity of the city of New Orleans even an ardent 

 collector would find it difficult to work up much enthusiasm. 

 Anywhere about the city you can dig down two feet and find 

 water, and from the city limits in almost every direction stretches 

 immense swamps of cypress and palmetto, with here and there a 

 knoll of dryer ground peeping up from the depths ; and yet in 

 these places where everything seems suitable to a fine growth of 

 ferns, I have not seen a single fern-plant in four months' collect- 

 ing, except a single specimen of the marsh shield fern. 



Of course this excepts the pray polypody or resurrection fern. 

 This is a common species especially delighting in a position on 

 the trunk or spreading main branches of the live oak. In the 

 parks and along the public streets it is a common sight, but I 

 never tire of seeing it. It seems particularly in keeping with the 

 venerable appearance of its moss-draped host. In dry weather 

 so well does it blend with the bark that none but a practical eye 

 would see it; but when a stormy day comes, every frond is 

 spread and drinking in life to the utmost. How it loves disagree- 

 able weather! Thoreau's "cheerful community of the polypody" 

 acquires a new significance with this species. 



Last October as I was wandering along the levee which pro- 

 tects the city from the encroachments of Lake Pontchartrain, I 

 found in the sedgy and bushy shallows of this great arm of the 

 Gulf, a most surprising specimen, in the shape of the floating 

 fern (Ceratopteris thalictroides) . Until I fished it out of the 



