Polypodium vulgare or Polypodium Dryopterisi (common polypody),
A. marginale or Dryopteris marginalis (marginal shield fern or marginal woodfern)
& Aspidium achrostichoides (terminal shield fern or Christmas fern)
I would make a chart of our life,
know why just this circle of creatures completes the world.
Henry Thoreau, April 18, 1852
I now take notice of
the green polypody on the rock
and various other ferns, one the marginal shield fern
and one the terminal shield fern.
November 16, 1853
My thoughts are with the
polypody a long time after
my body has passed.
November 2, 1857
Almost every plant, however humble, has thus its day,
and sooner or later becomes the characteristic feature
of some part of the landscape or other.
September 10, 1860
March 17. Rocky islands covered with green lichens and with polypody half submerged rise directly from the water. March 17, 1859
April 27. I see, close under the rocks at Lee's, some new polypody flatted out. April 27, 1860
May 5. The marginal shield fern is one foot high here [Lee's Cliff]. May 5, 1860
May 13. What is that fern so common at Lee's Cliff, now sprung up a foot high with a very chaffy stem? Marginal shield? Is that Polypodium Dryopterisi n the bank behind the slippery elm? Now six or seven inches high. May 13,1860
July 17. I found yesterday, at and above the Hemlocks on the Assabet, the dicksonia, apparently in prime; Aspidium Noveboracense Aspidium marginale, apparently in prime; Osmunda Claytoniana and cinnamomea, done I find to-day, at Bittern Cliff and at Lee's, Asplenium ebeneum (the larger), apparently nearly in prime, and A. Trichomanes, apparently just begun. This very commonly occurs in tufts at the base of the last, like radical leaves to it. At Lee's Cliff, Polypodium vulgare, not yet brown fruit. July 17, 1857
July 29. Brister's Hill. There are some beautiful glossy, firm ferns there, – Polytichum acrostichoides (?), shield fern. Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do in that line. July 29, 1853
August 30. I find at this time in fruit: (1) Polypodium vulgare . . . (5) Asplenium Trichomanes (dwarf spleenwort), also (6) A. ebeneum (ebony spleenwort) . . . (8) Dryopteris marginalis (marginal shield fern), (9) Polystichum acrostichoides (terminal shield fern) . . . Nos . 1, 5, 6, and 8 common at Lee's Cliff. No. . . . 9 at Brister's Hill. August 30, 1853
September 4. At the cleft rock by the hill just west of this swamp, — call it Cornel Rock, – I found apparently Aspidium cristatum (?), q. v. That is an interesting spot . . . There is quite a collection of rare plants there, – petty morel, Thalictrum dioicum, witch hazel, etc., Rhus radicans, maple-leaved viburnum, polypody, Polygonum dumetorum, anychia. There was a strawberry vine falling over the perpendicular face of the rock. September 4, 1857
September 8 . Gathered on this walk the Polypodium Dryopteris and Polystichum acrostichoides September 8, 1856
September 25. The terminal shield fern and the Aspidium spinulosum (?) are still fresh and green, the first as much so as the polypody. September 25, 1859
September 30 Ever since the unusually early and severe frost of the 16th, the evergreen ferns have been growing more and more distinct amid the fading and decaying and withering ones, and the sight of those suggests a cooler season. They are greener than ever, by contrast. The terminal shield fern is one of the handsomest. The most decidedly evergreen are the last, polypody, Aspidium marginale, and Aspidium spinulosum of Woodis Swamp and Brister's . . .
Of the twenty-three ferns which I seem to know here, seven may be called evergreens. September 30, 1859
October 17, 2024
October 23. The ferns which I can see on the bank, apparently all evergreens, are polypody at rock, marginal shield fern, terminal shield fern, and (I think it is) Aspidium spinulosum . . . The above-named evergreen ferns are so much the more conspicuous on that pale-brown ground. They stand out all at once and are seen to be evergreen; their character appears. October 23, 1857
October 28. I now begin to notice the evergreen ferns, when the others are all withered or fallen. October 28, 1858
October 29. With the fall of the white pine, etc., the Pyrola umbellata and the lycopodiums, and even evergreen ferns, suddenly emerge as from obscurity. If these plants are to be evergreen, how much they require this brown and withered carpet to be spread under them for effect. Now, too, the light is let in to show them. October 29, 1858
Polypody, November 4, 2022
November 2. It is very pleasant and cheerful nowadays, when the brown and withered leaves strew the ground and almost every plant is fallen or withered, to come upon a patch of polypody on some rocky hillside in the woods, —as in abundance on hillside between Calla Swamp and Bateman’s Pond, and still more same hillside east of the callas, —where, in the midst of the dry and rustling leaves, defying frost, it stands so freshly green and full of life. The mere greenness, which was not remarkable in the summer, is positively interesting now.
My thoughts are with the polypody a long time after my body has passed.
The brakes, the sarsaparilla, the osmundas, the Solomon’s-seals, the lady's slippers have long since withered and fallen. The huckleberries and blueberries, too, have lost their leaves. The forest floor is covered with a thick coat of moist brown leaves. But what is that perennial and spring like verdure that clothes the rocks, of small green plumes pointing various ways? It is the cheerful community of the polypody.
It survives at least as the type of vegetation, to remind us of the spring which shall not fail. These are the green pastures where I browse now.
Why is not this form copied by our sculptors instead of the foreign acanthus leaves and bays? The sight of this unwithering green leaf excites me like red at some seasons. I don’t care for acanthus leaves; they are far-fetched. I do love this form, however, and would like to see it painted or sculptured, whether on your marble or my butter. How fit for a tuft about the base of a column!. . .The evergreen ferns and lycopodiums now have their day; now is the flower of their age, and their greenness is appreciated. They are much the clearest and most liquid green in the woods . . .
The form of the polypody is strangely interesting; it is even outlandish. Some forms, though common in our midst, are thus perennially foreign as the growths of other latitudes; there being a greater interval between us and their kind than usual. We all feel the ferns to be further from us, essentially and sympathetically, than the phaenogamous plants, the roses and weeds, for instance. It needs no geology nor botany to assure us of that. We feel it, and told them of it first.
The bare outline of the polypody thrills me strangely. It is a strange type which I cannot read. It only piques me. Simple as it is, it is as strange as an Oriental character. It is quite independent of my race, and of the Indian, and all mankind. It is a fabulous, mythological form, such as prevailed when the earth and air and water were inhabited by those extinct fossil creatures that we find. It is contemporary with them, and affects as the sight of them. November 2, 1857
November 5. Sometimes I would rather get a transient glimpse or side view of a thing than stand fronting to it, — as those polypodies.
The object I caught a glimpse of as I went by haunts my thoughts a long time, is infinitely suggestive, and I do not care to front it and scrutinize it, for I know that the thing that really concerns me is not there, but in my relation to that. That is a mere reflecting surface.
It is not the polypody in my pitcher or herbarium, or which I may possibly persuade to grow on a bank in my yard, or which is described in botanies, that interests me, but the one that I pass by in my walks a little distance off, when in the right mood. Its influence is sporadic, wafted through the air to me. Do you imagine its fruit to stick to the back of the leaf all winter?
At this season polypody is in the air. November 5, 1857
November 5. It is worth the while to walk in swamps now, to bathe your eyes with greenness. The terminal shield fern is the handsomest and glossiest green. November 5, 1857
Rock Polypody
November 2, 2023
November 15. To Grackle Swamp. A very fine snow falling, just enough to whiten the bare spots a little. I go to look for evergreen ferns before they are covered up. The end of last month and the first part of this is the time. I do not know that I find more than one kind now in that swamp, and of that the fertile fronds are mostly decayed. All lie flat, ready to be buried in snow . . . Gossamer, methinks, belongs to the latter part of October and first part of November; also the . . . evergreen ferns. November 15, 1858
November 16. I now take notice of the green polypody on the rock and various other ferns, one the marginal (?) shield fern and one the terminal shield fern, and this other, here inserted, on the steep bank above the Hemlocks. November 16, 1853
November 16 The lycopodium dendroideum, complanatum, and lucidulum, and the terminal shield fern are also very interesting. November 16, 1858
November 17. The polypody on the rock is much shrivelled by the late cold. The edges are curled up, and it is not nearly so fair as it was ten days ago. November 17, 1858
November 17. As for the evergreen ferns, I see now —Common polypody (though shrivelled by cold where exposed). Asplenium trichomanes. A. ebeneum. Aspidium spinulosum (?) large frond, small-fruited, in swamp southeast Brister’s Spring, on 16th. A. cristatum (?), Grackle Swamp on the 15th, with oftener what I take to be the narrower and more open sterile frond. A. marginale (common). A. achrostichoides (terminal shield). The first one and the last two are particularly handsome, the last especially, it has so thick a frond. November 17, 1858
December 7. The terminal shield fern is quite fresh and green, and a common thin fern, though fallen. December 7, 1853
December 23. At Lee’s Cliff I notice these radical leaves quite fresh: saxifrage, sorrel, polypody, mullein, columbine, veronica, thyme-leaved sandwort, spleenwort, strawberry, buttercup, radical johnswort, mouse-ear, radical pinweeds, cinquefoils, checkerberry, Wintergreen, thistles, catnip, Turritis stricta especially fresh and bright. December 23, 1855
January 23. I see the terminal shield fern very fresh, as an evergreen, at Saw Mill Brook, and (I think it is) the marginal fern and Lycopodium lucidulum. January 23, 1858
See also:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part One: Maidenhair and Ebony Spleenwort;
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Two: Aspidium spinulosum & Aspidium cristatum
I begin now to
notice the evergreen ferns –
when others wither.
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The Evergreen Ferns, Part Three:
A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau
"A book, each page written in its own season,
out-of-doors, in its own locality."
~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx © 2009-2024
https://tinyurl.com/hdt-polypody
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