After remaining in the region of the Wash-Tubs an hour or more, I
followed down the lateral moraine or wooded ridge along the stream, which
became rocky in the heart of the hemlocks. Upon a broad table-like rock,
I found a large mat of Walking Ferns. It appeared about four feet square,
and contained the most luxuriant plants I have ever seen or expect
to see. I placed several in my vasculum, and descended to the stream,
hastening on toward the village. Here I met an old gray-haired man—the
inn-keeper for the mill laborers. He recognized my botanizing outfit,
and remarked that Mr. Eggleston had passed through the town in 1899. He
directed me to the Gregor Rocks, above the village, and thus I found the
path winding around the northern brow of these lime-rock cliffs.
Crossing the Pownal Centre road, I entered the pasture east of the
village church, and wound up the cliffs above the limekiln quarry. Here,
striking in among the cedar trees and ragged bluffs, I pulled myself up
under the trees and rocks. Resting for a moment, I beheld a fern which
proved to be the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake (_Pellæa atropurpurea_). Much
elated by my discovery, I fell to wondering what the little Wall-Rue
Spleenwort (_Asplenium Ruta-muraria_) could look like. I had studied the
plates of these rare ferns, but had not known them face to face. I soon
came to an enormous lime-rock boulder on the summit of Gregor Rocks, and
here I found the rare ferns for which I searched. From the crevices both
the tender green tufts of the Wall-Rue Spleenwort and the wiry purple
stems of the Cliff-Brake grew luxuriantly, draping the fissured sides of
the boulder. Climbing to the top of the boulder, I saw beyond my reach
a tuft of Walking Fern. This proved to me that this plant throve on the
dryest of lime-rocks in the full glare of the sun, as well as in damp
sheltered places. None of these species look like the ferns that are
ordinarily known, and unless one turns the leaves over and observes the
_sori_ or fruit dots, he would never guess to what family they belonged,
so different are they in appearance from their brothers of the boglands
and hillside pastures.
The rocks about were covered with tufts of the delicate Wall-Rue, and
great tangles of the Cliff-Brake, growing from twelve to fifteen inches
tall. The last year’s growth was still brown and rusty amid the fresh
green fronds of this season. Hardy indeed were these ferns, growing in
such a dry, exposed place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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