Sudbury Valley TrusteesConservation, Collaboration, and Community since 1953

After deciduous trees have bared their limbs, certain outdoorsy individuals enter the woods in pursuit of white-tailed deer. Searching for their quarry, what do they see? Wet gray days have washed the color from autumn leaves, but scattered clumps of hardy ferns glow with lively, eye-catching green. The hunters’ wandering gaze finds those pretty evergreen ferns that brave the frost.

Here lies an opportunity. In Walden, Thoreau noted that many a young person is introduced to the forest through hunting and fishing until “he distinguishes his proper objects, as a poet or naturalist it may be, and leaves the gun and fish-pole behind.” Thoreau added, “The mass of men are still and always young in this respect.”

Passing over that last little sniff, we ask, what can we do to help? Shouldn’t we extend every aid to enjoying those outdoor hours? Don’t hunters need a poem to help them notice and remember the evergreen ferns?

Yes, they do. Human beings have difficulty being aware of objects we’re unable to name. Armed with botanical knowledge, sportspeople will take more pleasure in their predatory excursions. Plant identification might at first lack the excitement of stalking and shooting—but greed for fun expands our interests. Even over-abundant deer can make themselves scarce, but plants wait patiently to be noticed and appreciated. They don't mind if you sleep late!

Absent blanketing snow, visitors to the nature trail at Sudbury Valley Trustees’ Wolbach Farm can see Christmas fern, ebony spleenwort, common polypody, and the evergreen woodferns. These, plus maidenhair spleenwort, are the ferns New England hunters stand a decent chance of finding. A small, manageable number. Each species is ecologically respectable, an upstanding member of its natural community, native to our continent and locality. Convinced that people would benefit from stanzas to help them recognize our evergreen ferns, I’ve stood at the poetic workbench and done a little hammering.

From my stand high in a tree

Dryopteris, I nod to thee.

“Dryopteris” is the scientific name for the woodfern genus. These Latin terms, abstruse and intimidating though they are, have syllables well suited for prosody.

A funny ear you’ll find upon

Each pinna of a Christmas fern

For Polystichum acrostichoides

That is all you have to learn.

Ferniness results from much-divided leaves. Fronds separate into pinnae, which in some species split again to pinnules that might have pinnulets, or lobes. Christmas fern is rather tidy; its divisions stop with pinnae.

My efforts to date are far from satisfactory and farther from completion. The mnemonic botanical muse avoids me. Will you help? If so, please send your verses to rmcadow@sudburyvalleytrustees.org. I’ll post them where they’ll do the most good.