Speaking of Nature: Climbing out on a limb: The Hartford fern is not your typical fern
Last week I started telling the story of a particular expedition into the woods and I ended up writing a column on the basics of fern biology. I covered the evolution of ferns, their place in the general evolution of terrestrial plants, and the curious nature of their reproductive cycle. To put it plainly, things got away from me and I didn’t notice until it was too late. The beauty of time, however, is the fact that there is always next week. So, without further adieu, I transport you back to a morning in early April…
It was surprisingly warm for the time of year and I was delighted to see that it was also cloudy. Clear skies and sun are nice if you are on the water, but bright sun in early spring is a nightmare when you are trying to take pictures in a forest. Too many shadows from too many tree trunks wreak havoc on the sensors of digital cameras. The human eye can handle the difference in contrast, but electronics really struggle. Thus it was with a spring in my step and a cheerful sigh of contentment that I walked into the woods.
My goal on this particular morning was to see if I could find a particular fern that I had seen way back in November 2012 when my dear friend, Merry Cushing, took me on a safari. It occurred to me that ferns have been around for hundreds of millions of years, so I wanted to see if I could find a patch of life that I myself had seen only 12 years ago. Time, it seems, is all a matter of perspective and memory can be a tricky thing.
At first, I wasn’t even sure if I was on the correct trail, but a couple hundred yards into the trees I started to see things that I remembered from my first and only visit. There were vernal pools everywhere and the songs of wood frogs filled the forest. I stopped long enough to take some landscape photos and even a few pictures of skunk cabbages, but I had a mission and I pressed forward.
Soon I came to a fork in the trail. I had no memory of this place and, of course, I took a wrong turn. I corrected the error almost immediately and quickly saw promising hints in the landscape, which suggested that I was heading in the right direction. I emerged from the forest into a large hayfield and found myself standing next to an enormous alder swale. This was it! I had arrived. To my left there was a corridor of mature trees, mostly white pines, that served as a divider between two hay fields. I walked along the edge of this line of trees, looking for hints of my quarry, and then, quite anticlimactically, I found it.
The species of fern that I was hunting for is called the American climbing fern (Lygodium palmatum). As its name suggests, this species is often seen “climbing” nearby objects and on my only other visit that is exactly what the plant had been doing. This time, however, the only representatives of the species were laying flat on the ground. Search as I might, I couldn’t find signs of climbing, but then I snapped out of my morning stupor and had a moment of clarity. In 2012 I visited these ferns before the snow fell. In 2025 I visited after the snow fell, and presumably after the climbing portions had been pulled down.
The thing that you will immediately notice about the photo of this fern is the fact that it doesn’t look like a fern at all. There is no frond on this fern; the central stem and lateral leaf blades that “regular” ferns show. In this particular species there are what appear to be single leaves that are rather tenuously attached to a threadlike filament that serves as the plant’s stem. A closer look at the leaves show that they are vaguely shaped like a five-fingered hand. This shape is what inspired the species identifier, “palmatum,” for the palm of your hand.
So, despite a brief moment of concerned confusion, it became clear to me that the climbing ferns were all healthy and happy, if also a bit beat up by the past winter. You may be asking where exactly I saw this fern and I am not going to tell you. A native plant of the eastern United States, it is threatened across much of its range and therefore requires protection. The species is also known as the Hartford fern because it was the first plant to be protected by U.S. law in, of all places, Hartford, Connecticut. The fern had been collected as a traditional Christmas decoration, but then the practice was halted to protect the species from extirpation, or extinction. Science-minded people saw a threat and stepped in to protect life. It’s sad to think that efforts are currently underway to undo all of that good.
Spring has really sprung and the landscape is filling up with flowers and birdsong. I won’t tell you where the climbing fern lives, but that shouldn’t deter you from getting outside and reveling in the blooming of nature. Examine every twig and tendril that you find, pause to listen to every twitter and chirp that you hear, and soak in the peace and calm of forest and field. Every moment spent outside will do you some good.
Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 27 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.
Daily Hampshire Gazette
