byMartin
Richard: Timber Press
192 pages$49.95
CN
A Book
review by M.J. Harvey October 2000
The author is the owner of a fern nursery in England started in 1989.He found that the demand for ferns proved to be such that the nursery expanded much more rapidly than expected.In addition to cultivating many ornamental ferns he has imported thousands of tree-fern trunks from Australia (where fern groves are bulldozed for subdivisions).
The
book consists of a short section on the history of fern cultivation including
the use of ‘stumperies’.A stumpery
is an area where tree stumps have been replanted upside down – roots sticking
into the air.Ferns are then planted
in pockets of humus between the roots where they are easier to see and
tend.Stumperies were apparently
invented during the Victorian age and have just been revived.
There
is another short section on care and propagation but the real heart of
the book is an extended encyclopaedic description of cultivated ferns and
their cultivars.Believe me, this
is a detail book.It is the
finest reference I have come across for details of names and descriptions
of the aberrations of fern frond fringing.For
instance there are twelve pages on the minute differences between cultivars
of Polystichum setiferum.
Accompanying
the descriptions are generous numbers of excellent photographs done in
the laid-flat close-up style pioneered by Phillips and Rix.This
is just the sort of book I like to have on my reference bookshelf.
Negative
comments?This is a Brit book.Maybe
I’m too sensitive as a nouveau-Canadian but the book has the plant hardiness
zone maps of Europe and USA.North
of the USA is – bland (or is it ice?)It
illustrates that most Brits think that Canada is either an imaginary country
or a part of the USA.Another picky
point, our Goldback fernPentagramma
triangularis
– ‘Western USA, Mexico’.Well, I
suppose Vancouver Island isn’t all that important.Also
the Royal fern Osmunda regalis is said to occur in Europe and Asia
– no mention of eastern North America.But
these are minor points.Our local
Vancouver Island fern Polypodium scouleri is said to be ‘surprisingly
hardy inland in central England’, (it is frost sensitive.).Also,
bless the author, he has our very own local cultivar, the fringed licorice
fern, Polypodium glycyrrhiza cv ‘Malahatensis’, discovered on the
Malahat by Ed Lohbrunner.
Because
of that the rest is forgiven.
Definition:Fern
– not born in Texas