PARK AND CEMETERY. 
284 
A UNIQUE FERN ROOM 
UNIQUELY PLACED PLANTATION OF FERNS. photo by mks. slavey 
The old Spanish fort, San Marco, now 
called Fort Marion, at St. Augustine, a 
grim and gray survival of the very 
earliest days of European occupation of 
our country, is now somewhat softened 
and blended with the landscape by pic- 
turesque cedar trees growing in groups 
or singly on the glacis, within the cov- 
ered way, clinging to its outer wall and 
even finding foothold on the walls of 
the fort itself, although these last have 
been necessarily removed in protecting 
the building from disintegration. 
Inside, the court and casemates hav- 
ing walls, ceilings and floors of coquina 
coated with cement, one expects to find 
only the stony bareness of ancient cas- 
tles and lonely dungeons. Surprise and 
pleasure are correspondingly great, on 
looking through the grated windows 
which admit light and air at one end of 
each room, to discover in one of them 
a feathery mass of delicate, beautifully 
fresh, green maidenhair ferns. It clings 
to the bare wall and spreads out on the 
floor like a miniature forest on moun- 
tain foothills. The ferns also grow sin- 
gly or in small groups over the two side 
walls nearly to the spring of the arched 
ceiling, brocading the cold, gray stone 
with living green of surpassing beauty. 
To come unexpectedly on this dainty 
greenery in this dull and gloomy in- 
terior is as refreshing as a spring in 
desert sands. 
Tire coquina of which the old fort is 
built comes from what is said to be the 
only quarry of this peculiar and beautiful 
concrete shell rock in the world, sit- 
uated on Anastasia Island. It is quite 
porous, and notwithstanding the great 
thickness of the walls and ceiling, 
which, of course, supports the additional 
thickness of the ramparts above, no 
doubt moisture from heavy rains grad- 
ually penetrates in time to the rooms. 
This is shown by discoloration of the 
walls and floors. This moisture and the 
sustenance supplied by the decomposed 
shells in the rock is all there is to sup- 
port plant life, except any dust that may 
be blown into the room, but it seems to 
be sufficient. 
The ferns appeared three or possibly 
four years ago, apparently springing up 
spontaneously. No one knows how or 
when the fern spores were deposited, 
but having come, the plants have in- 
creased quite rapidly and grow at the 
top of the side walls, and have spread 
faster there, as well as on the floor. 
A little below the spring of the arched 
ceilings of all the rooms there are open- 
ings in the walls where beams were in- 
serted to support a shallow second story 
to make sufficient space for the people 
of the town who took refuge in the fort 
in times of stress, such as when be- 
sieged by Drake and again by Ogle- 
thorpe. The latter bombarded it, from 
batteries planted on the island, for 
thirty-eight days without making any 
impression, and retired discouraged.' In 
fact, the fort has never been taken. 
These openings in the stone in the 
“fern room'’ are now daintily fringed 
with lacy green fronds. The openings 
in that particular casemate are partly 
utilized by a family of monkey-faced 
owls as nesting places and the birds 
may be responsible for the introduction 
of the germs that started the fairy-like 
plantation in this unlikely situation. If 
IN FLORIDA 
so; they are paying rent in a most ac- 
ceptable if unpremeditated way. 
At all events there is the unique fern- 
ery, and it never fails to evoke aston- 
ished interest from the observing among 
the thousands of winter visitors to old 
St. Augustine. 
Frances Copley Slavey. 
OUR JANUARY FRONT COVER 
PICTURE. 
The illustration for this month’s cover of 
Park and Cemetery has been furnished us 
by the Stewart Iron Works Co., Cincinnati. 
It is an actual photographic reproduction 
of the massive entrance gates and fence de- 
signed, built and erected by them for the 
beautiful Highland Cemetery at Ypsilanti, 
Mich. The memorial entrance is a tribute 
to the memory of one of Ypsilanti’s most 
public-spirited citizens, Lewis W. Leetch, 
being a gift from him to the Highland 
Cemetery Association. 
The gates, fence and piers have all been 
appropriately designed by the Stewart Iron 
Works Co., to conform with the natural 
surroundings and broad recessed elevation 
of the entrance to the grounds. 
The large, square, 14-foot boulder type 
split field stone piers to which are 
hinged the double drive gates and the 
eight-foot piers of the same style and ma- 
terial for the walk gates contribute greatly 
to the symmetry and solidity of the entire 
construction of the gates and fence, which 
are made of heavy wrought steel material. 
A better idea of the massiveness and 
construction of these gates and fence can 
be had from the following summarized 
description ; 
The double drive gates are 14 feet wide 
and 10 feet high. Horizontal top bar of 
gates is 2 inches square, upright bars Y\ 
inch square, all other horizontal rails 2x54 
inch solid iron; bottom rail is 3x2 inch 
angle iron. These gates are hung on eye 
and socket hinges with 2-inch square hinge 
bars, and so designed that they swing per- 
fectly free at all times without the least 
possibility of gates getting out of align- 
ment. 
Walk gates are a design of the same pat- 
tern as the drive gates and are similarly 
constructed and hung. They are 7 feet 
high, with a clearance of 4 feet. All gates 
are equipped with the Stewart patent locks 
and fasteners. 
The fence for front of cemetery fur- 
nished with these entrance gates is made 
in panels approximately 8 feet long and 
6 feet high ; the horizontal rails are 2x54 
channels ; pickets are Y inch square, set 
diagonally and spaced 5 inches on centers. 
At the end of each panel a heavy adjust- 
able Stewart patent line post is used. 
The design and entire scheme of con- 
struction of this fence are such that it 
(Concluded on page IX) 
