. St. Nicholas [serial]. nterested lastspring in watching the growth of a row of tall river-ferns, asthey call them, which grow in front of our piazza. They growhere in great numbers along the Housatonic, and had beenplanted near the house before we came here. Their growthseemed to be like ordinary ferns till just a little while ago,when some curious sprouts came up in the middle of eachplant. One would imagine them fronds, except that they donot grow on the spiral. The ferns themselves are very tall —the largest I have ever seen. These shoots are of a dark, disagreeable olive green, do notspr
. St. Nicholas [serial]. nterested lastspring in watching the growth of a row of tall river-ferns, asthey call them, which grow in front of our piazza. They growhere in great numbers along the Housatonic, and had beenplanted near the house before we came here. Their growthseemed to be like ordinary ferns till just a little while ago,when some curious sprouts came up in the middle of eachplant. One would imagine them fronds, except that they donot grow on the spiral. The ferns themselves are very tall —the largest I have ever seen. These shoots are of a dark, disagreeable olive green, do notspread prettily, and are very thick and ugly. Do brakes actthis way? for the plants seem much too large to be real fernsof a temperate climate. Inside the sprouts are tiny seeds (per-haps spores). We should all be glad to hear an explanation inyour Nature and Science department. Sincerely yours, Elizabeth C. Porter (age 15). The fern you describe, and of which you sentliberal specimens, is the ostrich-fern [Stnithiopteris. THE OSTRICH-FEKN BY THE RIVERSIDE. THE FERTILE FRONDS SOMEWHATRESEMBLE OSTRICH-PLUMES. Germanica). The commonname is due to an imagined like-ness of the fronds to an ostrich-feather. This fern is the tallestof Eastern American ferns, andby many regarded as the hand-somest. In the illustration at the leftour artist has represented thecharacteristic form and growthof these beautiful ferns by theriverside. The straight fruitingfrond is shown in the center ofeach clump. It is these fertilefronds that resemble ostrich-plumes. In Our Ferns in theirHaunts, Clute says of this fern: It is at its best in the wet, sandysoil of a half-shaded island or rivershore, and in such situations puts up 1904. NATURE AND SCIENCE FOR YOUNG FOLKS. 847 magnificent crowns of fronds that often reach a lengthof seven feet. In the northern United States there aremany jungle-like thickets of this species in which a manof ordinary height may stand and be completely hidden. a storks nest on a
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Keywords: ., bookauthordodgemar, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1873
