A study in croziers (fiddleheads)

What: 1) The wood fern had totally colonized an old stump (possibly white pine, as much of the pine had been logged in that area in recent history). 2) Ostrich fern is past its peak with just a few scattered fiddleheads - or croziers - still furled enough to harvest. The rest were almost entirely unfurled, but still only about 1-2' tall. 3) Someone had harvested some of the cinnamon fern and its sap had congealed into this hard jelly type crust on the broken stem. I think I might have mis-labeled an interrupted fern as cinnamon fern in a previous post. The two next to each other shows a pretty clear contrast in the color of fuzz coating each species. Cinnamon fern is the oranger of the two. Ryan showed me a photo of a white fuzzed fiddlehead with clear sporangia on the middle pinnae of one of the fiddleheads (Cathy Paris pointed this out to him). 4) The hay-scented fern reminded me of comedy and tragedy. These grow in a pretty dense patch under the powerlines. 5) Sensitive fern seems to be awfully red. I forgot to take note if there was more red on ones in the open than ones in shade. Next time I'm out...

Ostrich & cinnamon fern fiddleheads, false hellebore popping up

What: I noticed a few very young patches of ostrich fern fiddleheads, Matteuccia struthiopteris (pictured first) coming up along Wool Pullery Brook. Cinnamon fern (Osmunda cinnamomea) ** This was mislabled by me and is actually interrupted fern. IF has sporangia on the fronds - see first image - while CF has separate fertile fronds. Also, CF has a more orange color while IF is whiter ** was also coming up (second photo); I'm not sure, but I believe that the two small fiddleheads at the base of the much taller ones are the fertile fronds - I'll have to go back to double check. It's been extremely dry here the past couple of weeks and the water table is much lower than I'd expect in April. But the 80degree weather has pushed a lot of plants up and the aspen leaves in particular are a beautiful lime green. Also mixed in with the ostrich fern was false hellebore (Veratrum viride), in the lily family, trillium family, or Melanthiaceae.

Ecological notes: I don't know exactly what the chemical that causes it is, but the false hellebore smelled a lot like Italian herb bread crumbs. My theory on the strong smell (e.g. skunk cabbage) and toxicity (e.g. blue cohosh) of many spring ephemerals is as a defense against all those half-starved animals that made it through the winter and are looking for the first green vegetables. Might not be a big deal for larger mammals like us or deer, but the ptaquiloside in bracken fern, glycosides in marsh marigold, or caulophyllosaponin in blue cohosh, but to mice, squirrels, insects and other leaf eaters they would be toxic. There might be a strong selective pressure for early plants to equip themselves disproportionately to fend off hungry mouths.

Where: The ostrich fern seemed to be slightly higher up from the river than the false hellebore, maybe slightly dryer here. The hellebore seems to prefer slightly shadier spots as there are plenty of other stretches of the brook that are similar in other ways except exposure. The patch photographed has been around for at least 4 years, but it's downstream from the most recent beaver pond so the hydrology of the bank hasn't really changed in that time.

Ostrich fern and Sensitive fern dropping spores

What:  Sporangia on fertile fronds of both sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis) and ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) open and drop their spores early in the spring.

Ecological notes: Of our local ferns, only a small handful have the spores located on separate fronds (called fertile fronds). Examples include sensitive fern, ostrich fern, royal fern, and sort of intermediate fern. All of these are adapted to wet areas. Could be that having separate fronds allows them to protect the spores throughout the winter in the modified pinnae (that form the little balls) and then as the snow melts, drop their spores to be dispersed in the spring runoff to other spots where water pools.

Where: I find ostrich fern in sandy, but moist and enriched soils with moderate to high pH. Sensitive fern tends to like it wetter than ostrich fern (and therefore in more clay-ey, silty soils than ostrich fern). This patch is on a slope with a high water table.

Other notes: To tell the two species apart, ostrich fern has much larger more robust, wider spreading fertile fronds than the more delicate sensitive fern fronds. Ostrich fern also has fronds that are born out of a small dense cluster. In winter, you will readily notice the small dark knobs sticking out of the ground in a patch of ostrich fern. Sensitive has single blades that come out of the ground (these are often clumped loosely), but don't come out of the ground from a single point so you won't see the same lumpiness to the ground.