(1) The Marsh Fern
Aspídium Thelýpteris. THELÝPTERIS PALÚSTRIS
Dryópteris Thelýpteris. Nephròdium Thelýpteris
These are all good names and each one is worthy to be chosen. Aspídium, Greek for shield, in use for a century, adopted in all the seven editions of Gray’s Manual, is still the most familiar and pleasing term to its friends. Dryópteris, Greek for oak fern, has been chosen by Underwood and Britton and Brown and has grown in favor. Nephròdium, meaning kidney-like, favored by Davenport, Waters and, of late, Clute, is a most fitting name. THELÝPTERIS, meaning lady fern, is found to be the earliest name in use and according to rule the correct one.
Fronds pinnate, lanceolate, slightly or not at all narrowed at the base. Pinnæ horizontal or slightly recurved, linear-lanceolate and deeply pinnatifid. Lobes obtuse, but appear acute when their margins are reflexed over the sori. Veins once forked. Indusium minute. Stipes tall, lifting the blades ten to fifteen inches above the mud, whence they spring.
The fronds of the marsh fern are apt to be sterile in deep shade. It may be readily distinguished from the New York fern by its broad base, instead of tapering to very small pinnæ; by its long stalk, lifting the blade up into the sunlight, and by the revolute margins of the fertile fronds, which have suggested for it the name of “snuff-box” fern. It is separated from the Massachusetts fern by its forked veins. Common in marshes and damp woodlands; Canada to Florida and westward. While the marsh fern loves moisture and shade it is sometimes found in dry, open fields. Miss Lilian A. Cole, of Union, Me., reports a colony as growing on land above the swale in which Twayblade and Adder’s Tongue are found, “around rock heaps in open sunlight on clay soil, but homely and twisted,” as if a former woodsy environment had been long since cleared away while the deserted ferns persisted.