(3) Cinnamon Fern. Brakes
Osmunda cinnamomea
Fronds one to six feet long, pinnate. Pinnæ lanceolate, pinnatifid with oblong, obtuse divisions. Fertile pinnæ on separate fronds, which are contracted and covered with brown sporangia.
Each fertile frond springs up at first outside the sterile ones, but is soon surrounded and overtopped by them and finds itself in the center of a charming circle of green leaves curving gracefully outwards. In a short time, however, it withers and hangs down or falls to the ground. The large, conspicuous clusters of cinnamon ferns give picturesqueness to many a moist, hillside pasture and swampy woodyard. In its crosier stage it is wrapped in wool, which falls away as the fronds expand, but leaves, at the base of each pinna, a tiny tuft, as if to mark its identity.
Many people in the country call the cinnamon fern the “buckhorn brake,” and eat with relish the tender part which they find deep within the crown at the base of the unfolding fronds. This is known as the “heart of Osmund.” The fern, itself, with its tall, recurving leaves makes a beautiful ornament for the shady lawn, and like the interrupted fern is easy to cultivate. The spores of all the osmundas are green, and need to germinate quickly or they lose their vitality. Common in low and swampy grounds in eastern North America and South America and Japan. May. Some think it was this species which was coupled with the serpent in the old rhyme,
“Break the first brake you see, Kill the first snake you see, And you will conquer every enemy.”
Var. frondòsa has its fronds partly sterile below and irregularly fertile towards the summit.
Var. incìsa has the inner pinnules of some of the pinnæ more or less cut-toothed.
Var. glandulòsa has glandular hairs on the pinnæ, rachis and even the stipes of the sterile frond. This is known only on the coastal plain from Rhode Island to Maryland.