Thursday 5 January 2012

Ferns in the Forest

Male Fern Dryopteris filix-mas
With the mild wet weather we are having, the wild ferns are still looking spectacularly lush and tropical in the woods. They haven't yet been burnt by cold winds and frost and they don't look tatty at all.

Harts Tongue Phyllitis scolopendrium

A fern lined stream behind Fontbaudry,
on the outskirts of Preuilly-sur-Claise.
Susan

6 comments:

Tim said...

Lovely fern shots. In the second and third shots, though, you've managed to get two variants of Hart's Tongue... the common variant and P. scolopendrium "Crispum" which, i believe, is a cross 'twixt Hart's Tongue and Asplenium billotii... very much sought after by Victorian collectors. I've never seen it in the wild, but I'll keep my eyes peeled.

Leon Sims said...

Bloody fishbone ferns - can't stop them from multiplying on our property here in Melbourne - Tree ferns in the Dandenongs, beautiful.
Really do like ferns.

Susan said...

Tim: Well this is the place to look for that sort of thing. The two species are only really common in western France. I didn't see any Lanceolate Spleenwort though, and I assumed it was a natural variant or maybe a sport. It isn't just the Victorians with fern mania, btw - I see the NT had a load of Filmy Ferns stolen from one of their sites recently.

L&S: here it is the Harts Tongue that is like a weed, but I love them all.

Tim said...

So collectomania still exists! Have I shown you the Victorian Fern Album I have? I'm not sure I have.
Collect with a camera, where possible... and Flimsy Ferns are very difficult to keep... I'll hazard a guess they were stolen to order.

chm said...

Ferns are one of my favorite "non-blooming" plants. I have a Male Fern in my small garden in Paris that has been there for more than sixty years and still kicking!

Pearl said...

glorious, that fern0lined stream. we're all under snow here.

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