Polypodium californicum Kaulf.

 

Polypodiaceae (Fern Family)

 

Native

 

California Polypody    

                                        January Photo

 

Plant Characteristics:  Perennial with creeping rhizomes 5-10 mm. thick, with deciduous deltoid-ovate rusty brown scales 3-7 mm. long; fronds not evergreen, 1-3.5 dm. high; stipes stout, straw-colored, naked, mostly shorter than the blades; blades oblong to narrow-ovate, pinnatifid nearly to the rachis, mostly 0.5- 3 dm. long, 0.5-1.5 dm. wide, the segms. membranous, linear-oblong, 3-7 cm. long, veins mostly dark, opaque, 3-5 times forked, +/- casually joined and often forming an irregular series of areoles; sori oval, slightly inframedial, lacking an indusium, on inferior leaf surfaces.

 

Habitat:  Common winter and spring fern on rocky ledges and moist banks below 4000 ft.; Chaparral, Coastal Sage Scrub, etc.; cismontane s. Calif. n. through the Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada; Santa Barbara Ids.; L. Calif.

 

Name:  Latin, poly, many, and podium, foot. Many footed-referring to the freely branching rhizomes or feet.  (Bailey 78).  Californicum, of Calif.; first found in this state.  (Dale 13).

 

General:  Occasional in the study area.  Photographed above Back Bay Dr. between the Newporter Inn and San Joaquin Hills Dr. and between Big Canyon and the Salt Works dike.  (my comments).     Delfina Cuero, a Kumeyaay or Southern Diegueno Indian, made the following comments about Polypodium californicum in her autobiography:  "Boil the roots and leaves to use for internal bleeding.  The name awi hatat means 'rattlesnake back'; that's what it looks like."  (Shipek 94).      P. vulgare, also a western plant,  has roots that have  been used as a pectoral, demulcent, purgative and anthelmintic.  A strong decoction is a good purgative and will expel tenia worms.  A dose of the powdered plant is from one to four drams. (one eighth of an ounce). Of the decoction of syrup, from one to four fluid ounces, three or four times a day.  (Meyer 42).      As late as the 19th century ferns and other non-flowering plants were called “cryptogams” because their reproduction was hidden.  There was lack of understanding about the nature of the “dust” or fernseed that fell from the underside of fern leaves; was it a seed or pollen?   Today we know than fernseed is a spore, not a seed as it contains no embryo.  Spores germinate to form tiny, usually short-lived plantlets that are different in appearance and function from the parent fern.  The plantlets develop male and or female organs, carrying sperm and eggs respectively.  Only after fertilization does the young fern, the sporling, finally appear.  (Machol, Guenther K.  “FROM SPORE TO SPORLING: THE BIRTH OF A FERN”  FREMONTIA, A Journal of the California Native Plant Society Vol. 32, No.2 April 2004 pp. 10-15).        About 75 species, mostly in N. Hemis.  (Munz, Flora So. Calif. 23).

 

Text Ref:  Abrams, Vol. I 8; Hickman, Ed. 100; Munz, Calif. Flora 45; Munz, Flora So. Calif. 23.

Photo Ref:  Jan 1 84 # 16,17.

Identity: by R. De Ruff, confirmed by F. Roberts.

First Found:  January 1984.

 

Computer Ref:  Plant Data 262.

Have plant specimen.

Last edit 4/12/05.

 

                                          January Photo