June 26: The Dazzling Cinnamon Fern
Some things in nature are most conspicuous during a certain stage of their life cycle. Before this stage arrives or after it passes, these organisms are hardly noticeable and find themselves in the background of a busy environment. In early spring it is easy to spot the bright yellow forsythia in everyone’s yards, but many of us would have a hard time identifying the bush when it is devoid of blooms. In late summer the adult monarch butterfly is obvious while on wing, but it takes a trained eye to find its eggs on the underside of milkweed. Nature abounds with examples of this, and right now, for a brief window of time, no plant is standing out more than the dazzling cinnamon fern.
Take a walk sometime soon on a shaded BRLT preserve that has some low wet areas and you will notice the cinnamon fern with its tall shimmery-brown stalk rising up a few feet from the green leaf fronds like a flagpole. Ferns have sterile fronds for photosynthesis and fertile fronds for reproduction. The showy fertile frond of the cinnamon fern is easy to spot in the forest. It is composed of very small bead-like capsules which contain the spores used in growing new plants. Once the spores are mature and released, the fertile leaf dies and becomes inconspicuous.
Cinnamon fern has a wide distribution in North America, and it also occurs in South America and Asia. It is found in high quality natural areas and is occasionally used in landscaping, as it does well in moist, shaded gardens. These ferns are living fossils, coming before the time of flowering plants and well before the time of dinosaurs. In addition to reproducing with spores, they can also spread by rhizomes and form large colonies with fern fronds reaching 2 to 3 feet in height or more, giving our forests a primordial feel. Their green foliage darkens as summer progresses, eventually turning a striking gold and then a rich brown in the fall. Keep an eye out for these changes, and the cinnamon fern will no longer be inconspicuous after all.
