Nebraskaland

56 Nebraskaland • June 2021 Today, there are about 12,000 fern species worldwide, ranging from tree ferns in the tropics to the feathery-leaved ferns often used as ornamentals, to small fl oating ferns in Nebraska's playa marshes. Nebraska Ferns Of Nebraska's roughly 1,500 known native plant species, only 31 are ferns. Most of these species inhabit the moist, bluff woodlands bordering the Missouri River and its lower tributaries, but other species grow in habitats ranging from dry, rocky cliff s to constantly-saturated spring seeps. Although a few of our state's ferns are common and widespread, such as the wetland-inhabiting horsetails and scouring-rushes and the coniferous and deciduous woodland-inhabiting fragile fern, most of our ferns are uncommon or rare. The prairie moonwort, for instance, which tops out at a mere 2 inches tall, has been observed from only one woodland which is dominated by bur oak and cedar in the central Niobrara River Valley. Its habitat is common and a survey by a persistent, some might say obsessive, botanist willing to spend hours, if not days, on hands and knees searching the forest fl oor would possibly fi nd other populations. Among Nebraska's rare ferns is the powdery cloak fern, so named because of its white, powdery leaf under surface. In 1895 it was collected from a limestone cliff along Weeping Water Creek in Cass County and never seen again. Perhaps, it was extirpated by limestone mining in the area. The nearest populations of this plant are in eastern Kansas where it also grows on limestone. In 1893, the famous botanist P.A. Rydberg chanced upon the crested wood fern in a Sandhills marsh on the upper Dismal River. Botanists have never again found this plant in our state. Could it still be hiding out in the vastness of the Sandhills awaiting rediscovery? The nearest populations of this marsh and moist woodland fern are in eastern Iowa and southeast North Dakota Few fern species grow in the relatively dry, upland prairie, by far our state's most abundant native habitat. Among these are smooth scouring rush, which ventures out from wet meadows onto sandy prairie fl ats and low slopes. In 1999, while morel mushroom hunting in Pawnee County, I discovered the state's fi rst and only known population of the Engelmann's adder tongue, so named for the serpent's tongue shape of its spore-producing leaf. This diminutive fern was growing in and around a plum thicket in tallgrass prairie. The maidenhair fern is named for the fi ne, dark hairs on its roots. In Nebraska, it mainly grows on cool, moist slopes of Missouri River bluff woodlands, often in large colonies. The fern is a popular ornamental in shade gardens and also as a house plant. As with all ferns, the spores of ebony spleenwort develop in sori, the brownish bumps located on the underside of the leaves.

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