PTERIDOLOGIST 2007 CONTENTS Volume 4 Part 6, 2007 EDITORIAL James Merryweather Instructions to authors NEWS & COMMENT Dr Trevor Walker Chris Page 166 A Chilli Fern? Graham Ackers 168 The Botanical Research Fund 168 Miscellany 169 IDENTIFICATION Male Ferns 2007 James Merryweather 172 TREE-FERN NEWSLETTER No. 13 Hyper-Enthusiastic Rooting of a Dicksonia Andrew Leonard 178 Most Northerly, Outdoor Tree Ferns Alastair C. Wardlaw 178 Dicksonia x lathamii A.R. Busby 179 Tree Ferns at Kells House Garden Martin Rickard 181 FOCUS ON FERNERIES Renovated Palace for Dicksoniaceae Alastair C. Wardlaw 184 The Oldest Fernery? Martin Rickard 185 Benmore Fernery James Merryweather 186 FEATURES Recording Ferns part 3 Chris Page 188 Fern Sticks Yvonne Golding 190 The Stansfield Memorial Medal A.R. Busby 191 Fern Collections in Manchester Museum Barbara Porter 193 What’s Dutch about Dutch Rush? Wim de Winter 195 The Fine Ferns of Flora Græca Graham Ackers 203 CONSERVATION A Case for Ex Situ Conservation? Alastair C. Wardlaw 197 IN THE GARDEN The ‘Acutilobum’ Saga Robert Sykes 199 BOOK REVIEWS Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns by Sue Olsen Graham Ackers 170 Fern Books Before 1900 by Hall & Rickard Clive Jermy 172 Britsh Ferns DVD by James Merryweather Graham Ackers 187 COVER PICTURE: The ancestor common to all British male ferns, the mountain male fern Dryopteris oreades, growing on a ledge high on the south wall of Bealach na Ba (the pass of the cattle) Unless stated otherwise, between Kishorn and Applecross in photographs were supplied the Scottish Highlands - page 172. by the authors of the articles PHOTO: JAMES MERRYWEATHER in which they appear. DISCLAIMER: Common adder's tongue Views expressed in Pteridologist are not necessarily those of the British Pteridological Society. Ophioglossum vulgatum Copyright © 2007 British Pteridological Society. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may North Yorkshire Moors be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means) without the permission of the British Pteridological Society. PHOTO: YVONNE GOLDING Pteridologist 4, 6 (2007) 165 NEWS & COMMENT Dr TREVOR WALKER habitat niche, into which, after my to make mental notes together on how years at Newcastle, I found I had each species’ growth had developed an appreciation become lastingly rooted. since the last examination. We were not in the business (to my eternal by CHRIS PAGE Although fern cytology is the relief) of making a myriad of central contribution to pteridology for measurements of everything - we which we all know TGW, his interests I feel fortunate to be able to could not have dealt with so much spanned many aspects of evolution. It material if we had - and there was thus assemble the following thoughts about was his great diversity of thought, built a much respected pteridologist and nothing to which we consequently around well-founded techniques and needed to apply endless statistics cytotaxonomist from reminiscences of approaches that made research life a largely personal standpoint. Trevor (further relief). Ten minutes spent with with him so constantly absorbing. One one’s head in a glass case full of an George Walker was known by most main principle has particularly who knew him simply as ‘TGW’. exceptional array of young tropical remained with me: the importance of ferns at all stages of growth, provided From having known TGW initially as a beginning studies of plants as whole lecturer, I consider myself fortunate to adequate intellectual challenges of its living things, both in the field and in very own kind! have also then known him additionally the more captive environment of the as my undergraduate Tutor, then my glasshouse, where so many aspects The collections that we studied were PhD supervisor, then my post-Doctoral of their complex life-cycles can be partly ones originating from the early ‘anchor-man’ back in the UK while I put to closer scrutiny and subtle Manton-Sledge expeditions to Ceylon, worked abroad in the tropics, and environmental experimentation. Only to which were being extensively added spanning all of these and continuing then, once you have understood and those made by Trevor along with for nearly 50 years onward, my recognised all stages of their life cycle, Molly Walker (née Shivas, of guiding mentor and lasting friend. For are you fit to even begin to take their Polypodium fame) and often especially he earned from his students that rare studies further. I thus learned very Clive Jermy, so the whole aura of combination of both affection and much through our regular pilgrimages tropical fern collecting in those days unerring respect that can surround to the glasshouses, ferreting through had the full atmosphere of a family someone with such a strong presence. frames full of a billion young firm. I was flattered to be adopted into For I was both fortunate and surprised, sporophytes and somehow managing that family. The ferns we studied at the beginning of the sixties, to have become a student of Trevor Walker, by a somewhat informal process of ‘acquiring’ each other through the accident of a common interest in ferns, rather than through any planned strategy in this direction. ‘Fortunate’, because meeting him set the scientific directions for the rest of my life. ‘Surprised’ because up to that moment, I had not realised that there was anyone else on this planet who was interested in ferns! For although my own interests at the time were very much at the sporeling stage, to have had the good fortune to come, so early on, under the gentle but impressive shadow of the guiding frond of a well established guardian who was sympathetic to my inherent interests and the pursuit of these, was an academic fatherly influence at least on my life that I have never regretted. The ability to have remained close allies Fern Horticulture Conference, Kew (London), 1991 ever since, has been largely, I think, through sharing a vision even of Left to right: Matt Busby, Harry Roskam, Barry Thomas, Martin Rickard, pteridology from essentially the same Trevor Walker, Peter Barnes, Josephine Camus and Alison Paul. 166 Pteridologist 4, 6 (2007) NEWS & COMMENT originated from diverse parts of the what we grew were, without a doubt, analysis? These were also the very tropics, including Jamaica and then teamwork that needed multiple sets of early days of the Scanning Electron Trinidad, and later from across the eyes. I was always impressed in Microscope, and about this time, Chris southeast Asia-Australasia region finding that looking at our numerous Wood also joined us, and while he (from Indonesia to New Guinea and cultures of developing young ferns in a came up with magnificent SEM photos New Britain), to which those of my myriad of forms, gave exactly that of Thelypterid fern spores, I came up own modest collections from the same sensation of excitement as I had with cuticular ones of Equisetum, both Indian Ocean islands and those of earlier so-often experienced with with enthusiasm additionally tropical Australia and, in due course, finding fossils: that we were seeing stimulated by regular contact with many separate Pacific islands, also detailed aspects of organisms through Clive Jermy. Together, we all saw came to be added. What we grew, and critical stages of life cycles, and in so- tremendous future interpretive was minded daily by our faithful doing, we were often seeing what the potentials in each of these additional horticultural staff, soon filled two eye of man had never seen before. I approaches. With TGW, I learned too enormous greenhouses. For at that regarded this as a privilege. I think this about the important role which time (through the 1960’s), Newcastle was also the fire that drove TGW. I photography can play (in which he was and Leeds were the unrivalled came very much to appreciate his ‘Meccas’ for studies on living ferns, philosophy that, in trying to deal first a real expert) and of how to be critical probably anywhere in the world. For with whole plant communities, rather about, and to always improve, your both resulted from the original than the biology of individual plants, it own photographs and techniques. stimulation of Irene Manton, who was a pity that ecologists had started at Under respective microscopes, it herself had been tutor to both Trevor the wrong end! became an exciting turn of irony that and Molly Walker. At Leeds, Manton the ploidy spectrum of the insular ferns Meanwhile herself, and then Stanley Walker and , back at the laboratory, from the Canary Islands, on which I John Lovis and their students were the developing understanding of the was also working, was turning out to working actively on mostly temperate fundamental role which the processes be dramatically different from that of fern genera. At Newcastle, the fern of natural hybridisation and the equally insular Jamaican ferns that flavour was especially a tropical one, allopolyploidy had played in the Trevor was completing. Through his and here TGW led me on weekly evolution of pteridophytes, the easy-going manner and ready ‘walk-rounds’ to which I always elucidation of which had been approachableness, there was a constant looked forward (conducted rather like pioneered at Leeds, and which I flow of ideas at appropriate junctures, ward-rounds at a hospital, and with learned from TGW, were becoming, built on much first-hand experience. I for me, absorbing. I thus learned first- similar assiduity of attention to each absorbed these like a regularly watered hand, and was fascinated