Churchyard Nature Note with Andrew Tompsett
September 2010
The Lady, the Green Male and the
Hart’s Tongue
This could be a title from C S Lewis
but these are the names of just three
ferns which may be seen in our
churchyard. Ferns, unlike flowering
plants, are often passed by as they
have no flowers to attract our
attention.They generally
inhabit
damp shady places such as woods,
rocky valleys or the shade of
buildings. In fact your best view
of the first named one,the Lady Fern,
is the dense but delicate covering
on the pair of Basset memorials
beside the north wall of the church.
The Male Fern is a more robust
character with broader fronds.
The ‘shuttle-cock-shaped’ plant
will be seen scattered sparsely in
the churchyard but more
especially in the Tehidy East
Lodge Wood where there is
shade but limited amounts of
ground cover and plenty of leaf
mould. The third one in the title is
easily recognised by it ‘strap-shaped’
leaves, reminiscent of a
somewhat elongated Aspidistra
leaf. With its thicker, glossy
leaves it is much more tolerant
of sunny and dryer situations.
These are just three species in
what is a vast family, which, of
course, includes the delicate
Maidenhair Fern and the invasive
Bracken!
Ferns reproduce from spores
which can be seen as rows of
spots on the underside of mature
fronds although some, like the
marsh loving Osmunda Fern,
produce special spore-bearing
stems. The various shapes of
these little eruptions, known as
sori, enables botanists to identify
the many species. Perhaps the
simplest one to recognise is the
Hart’s Tongue where spores issue
from two rows of slits on the
underside of the leaf, an
arrangement which has
prompted a local name of
‘buttonholes’.An idea of the vast
number of spores produced may
be gained by standing a frond flat
overnight on a sheet of white paper
when a beautiful pattern may
be produced.
The same effect can be obtained
from a flat mushroom on a plate.
Let the children try it!
Fern leaves themselves were
often used for printing ink
patterns in Victorian times when
collecting wild ferns was very
popular, something which has
fortunately ceased now and is
illegal. Ferns die down in winter
and their growth in spring is
spectacular as each frond uncoils
in the shape of a bishop’s crozier,
often beautifully coated in rusty
brown scales for protection.
Today, garden centres stock a
selection of decorative ferns and
are the most suitable kind of
plant for that shady corner of the
garden because they are
unattractive to slugs and snails
which can cause havoc with most
other plants. In fact ferns are
remarkable in being unaffected
by all pests and diseases – a
useful trait in the garden but an
unfortunate consequence since
the most widely disliked of all
ferns, bracken, appears to have
no natural enemies and hence
spreads widely over pasture and
moorland. We have some in the
churchyard but will be keeping a
close eye on it!!