[Ferns and Fern Allies of the Trans-Pecos and Adjacent Areas by Sharon C. Yarborough and A. Michael Powell], Native Plant Society of Texas News, 20 (Nov.-Dec. 2002): 3.

To look at a fern is to travel back in time. Ferns date from over 300 million years ago, long before the appearance of the first flowering plant. Although I knew nothing of this remarkable ancestry when at a young age I saw my first ferns in the forests of Breton Woods, their delicate beauty nonetheless captivated my imagination. My childhood fascination with ferns was hardly unique, however. People have been attracted to ferns for some time. During the 19th Century, for instance, nothing less than a fern craze sprouted up in England, where suddenly once wild ferns were abundantly cultivated in gardens, purchased as indoor potted plants, and replicated in ornamental designs on numerous household items.*

When I arrived in Austin in 1969, whatever fern-desire I may have harbored soon withered in the heat. Although my first Austin home was located on a creek site, all the land surrounding it was caliche-hardly ideal for ferns or much else. Ferns, I had always observed, thrive in a shady, moist habitat. It was not until many years later when an acquaintance of my daughter gifted us with ebony spleenwort (Asplenium platyneuron) that my fondness for ferns revived. While this Texas native plant may not be as aesthetically appealing as the more delicately textured wood fern (Thelypteris kunthii), it is both hardy and drought tolerant. I have become very attached to ebony spleenwort. Planted along the north side of my home's foundation, it has thrived, even remaining green throughout every winter. After a protracted stretch of heat and drought, it signals the need for some water by yellowing slightly.

That there is yet more hope for Texas fern lovers who live in such dry places is evident in Sharon C. Yarborough and A. Michael Powell's new book. It identifies many native pteridophytes adapted to the arid conditions of the Trans-Pecos region-that Maine-sized western part of our state situated between the Rio Grande and the Pecos rivers where the average annual rainfall is a mere 12 inches. One of the intentions behind this book, in fact, is to promote the ferns of this locale as suitable candidates for xeriscaped home gardens.

The Trans-Pecos ferns conserve water by producing hair-shaded fronds somewhat smaller in size than average. Some of these plants will wither after a long period of dryness, and yet these very same seemingly dead flora will immediately green up again whenever water becomes available. It is likely, moreover, that these plants reproduce more by asexual means-vegetative buds forming on a tiny heart-shaped prothallus that normally produces eggs and sperm on its underside when moisture is present. Fern reproduction is a curious business, in any event, and the authors of Fern and Fern Allies do very well explaining the intricate process so that it can be easily understood by lay readers.

Including spikemosses, horsetails and scouring rushes, this attractive field guide provides detailed keys designed to facilitate plant identification in the wild. Besides useful information concerning the floral morphology and habitat conditions of Trans-Pecos pteridophytes, Yarborough and Powell provide 37 line drawings. In the matter of fern identification such detailed drawings are more helpful than photographs.

A comparison with David L. Jones's Encyclopedia of Ferns and Boughton Cobb's A Field Guide to the Ferns, in the Peterson series, provides another measure of the value of Ferns and Fern Allies. Of the 15 examples in the new book of members of Cheilanthes, the largest genus of the maidenhair fern family, only 3 appear in Cox's book and only 2 in Jones's volume. Similarly, of the 11 members of Selaginellaceae (the spikemoss family) described in Fern and Fern Allies, 2 are included in Jones's work and none in Cobb's guide. As these statistics and results of a comparative review of the remaining plants both suggest, Fern and Fern Allies is as valuable as it is handy.

What an invitation to adventure Yarborough and Powell's book provides. Like several columbines native to the same region, many of the Trans-Pecos ferns are hidden in unusual places. To be seen they must be searched out. And, as the authors note, "there are probably more rare treasures to be found in certain microhabitats" of that area of Texas. Let's hope so, and let's hope, too, that native plant nurseries will make some of these arid-adapted ferns available for our home garden landscapes.

*See David E. Allen, The Victorian Fern Craze: A History of Pteridomania (London: Hutchinson, 1969).

William J. Scheick, a former NPSOT vice-president, is also a member of the Central Texas Horticulture Council and a frequent contributor to Texas Gardener.