IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 9

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

UNCHANGING FERNS. By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. Several species of pretty ferns found in New Zealand, some locally distributed, others plentiful, one ascending mountains 4000 ft high, belong to a group that has been amazingly constant in a world whose, watchword apparently is change. They have tangled fronds, branching in pairs and long and slender stalks. Members of the group flourish in the tropics and the sub-tropics to such an extent that men can ■walk erect in tunnels cut through them. The group ranges from New Zealand to Mexico, Costa Rica, along -the Andes to the Falkland Islands t-o Ruwenzori, Natal, Madagascar, the Island of Reunion, Amsterdam Island, New Guinea, New Caledonia. Hawaii, India, China, Japan, and the Philippine Islands. It is surprising that members of the group are absent from Northern Africa, Europe, Western Asia, and almost the whole of North America. They are known to those who follow the study of ferns as Gleichenia, perpetuating the name of Baron Gleichen, a German botanist.

A search for their origin amongst fragmentary records written in the rocks has been as elusive almost as the quest of the Holy Grail, but it shows that, although they have wandered from one part of the world to the other, they have gone through little change since the days before flowering plants came into ascendency in the Cretaceous Period,' some 70,000.000 years ago, according to the latest method of computing the ages of geological periods. The lack of difference in the dead and the living Gleichenia seems to colour the paradox that “we still live in the Cretaceous Period.” The records show at lea-st. that members of the family lived in Europe in Tertiary times, although the records there are few and fragmentary: earlier they were in England, France. Germany, Greenland, and the Balkans in the Cretaceous. Period; and still earlier in New Zealand, Australia, Poland, India, Patagonia, and the north-east of Scotland in the Jurassic Period. Their golden age was in the Cretaceous Period. Jurassic individuals left their remains in New Zealand at- the Mataura Falls, Southland, the Waikato Heads. Auckland Province, and Owaka Creek, Gatlin’s River, Otago. Two of New Zealand’s five living species are known bv their Maori names, Wae-wae-kaka and Tapu-wae-kotuku, the umbrella fern, which sometimes has a strange habit of leaning rakishly to one side.

New Zealand’s ' extraordinary climbing fern, the Maori's mange-mange, the botanist’s Lygodium, belongs to a family which has changed very slightly, if at all, since Tviassic days, in the beginning of the Meso zoic Era, perhaps 190,000,000 years ago. A member of the family—the uncouth family name, Schizsea, refers to the split fronds —left leaves in Jurassic rocks in England, Sardinia, Afghanistan, and Korea, bearing organs that contain minute grains whicn perform the functions of seeds. Those organs, sporangia, are identical with the same organs of living members of the family. There has been no change. In one of the earliest family records, found in Jurassic rock near Nuremberg, Bavaria, the characteristic organs are preserved clearly. Very old fossils, found in rock of the Paleozoic Era—Early Life—in other countries often are quoted to show that this family had a Palaeozoic origin, but cautious palseo-botanists feel that, in view of the scanty knowledge available, it would be rash to assume direct relationship between the Palaeozoic fern and living members of the family to which New Zealand’s climbing fern belongs.

It climbs by its long, slender stalks, which act as lianes. Sometimes it reaches the tops of the loftiest forest trees in the district it lives in, from the North Cape to the Bay of Plenty on the east and Kawhai on the west. In other countries Lygodiums throw out stalks 100 feet long. It is remarkable that, although New Zealand has been well surveyed geologically, no traces of Palaeozoic plants have been found here. Glossopteris—tongue-shaped fern —which spread over a great part of the World, particularly in the Carboniferous Period of the Palaeozoic Era, and is, or was, as. it has completely disappeared, perhaps the world’s greatest weed, left no records in New Zealand as far as is known, although some may be waiting to be found. Notes have been sent by Mr E. Phillips Turner, secretary to the Forestry Department, on a report by a correspondent on wood that emits light, “The emission of light by wood when it is decaying,” Mr Phillip Turner writes, “has been noted for a very long time. The first two lines of the second verse of “The Soul’s Errand, written by Sir Walter Raleigh about 1593, are:—Go, tell -the court it glows And shines like rotten wood. “Bacon, in ‘Sylva Sylvarum,’ refers to the luminosity of rotting wood, and states that the wood of some species of trees omits light, while the wood of other species does not. Decay in wood is due to the notion of fungi, whose Myeelia—thread-like strands—penetrate the wood-cells and consume their elements. It is known now that light is emitted by some species of the wood-destroying fungi. As these phosphorescent fungi do not attack some trees it is clear why all rotting wood is not luminous. Bacon noticed that the luminosity of rotten wood disappeared when the wood was dried. This fact is due to the suspension of the activities of the fungus which will not function without sufficient moisture. I have seen in a Tasmanian eucalyptus forest a large bracket-fungus so luminous that boys placed it on roads at night, thinking it would frighten passersby. I have often seen phosphorescent wood in New Zealand forests, and I have noticed that semi-decayed wood of the wharangi or hekatara, Olearia cunninghami, often is luminous.” “Some time ago my fowls showed signs ot consternation and refused to be pacified,” Mr S. A. Browne wrote from Clevedon, Manukau County, on December 2. “On seeking the cause I found a wood pigeon perched on the hare limb of a big manuka, one of a fringe that grows on the bank of an old Maori pa which surrounds my abode. I had seen the bird flying about. It. had sampled some persimmons, but did not seem to care for them. It then saw some ripe guavas, and, after a few attempts,

took kindly to them- As it was trustful, alter the way of wood pigeons, I could stand a few feet off and watch it feed Although I oould not see it actually take anything, the ripe food disappeared, and tho pigeon’s neck worked in the process ot very laboured swallowing, otherwise I would have thought that it took nothing. Its sipping of rain drops on the tree was quite obvious. It flew into a big poplar on tho roadside presumably for a sleep, and the inevitable gun got to work. Last winter near the same place, I saw another wood pigeon flying about as if it was spying out mo land. It looked at the guavas, but I did not see it on any of the trees. It disappeared, and I saw it no more; but • a pigeon's feathers were found in a gully not far away just after the shooting season r his is as exasperating as the practice of people who go into a certain gully near the roadside and pull the pretty ferns, presumably in order that nobody else should enjoy their dainty beauty.” i 4ho fate of a shining cuckoo is recorded by Mrs Hewitt, 83 Waimairi road, Upper Kicearton, near Christchurch. She writes,On Tuesday, November 21, I drew my husband’s attention- to a bird that had alighted on an apple tree behind our house. Ii seemed to be quite tame, and we were able to draw near and admire the pretty creature, with its shining green mantle and striped breast. I went into the house. Going out soon afterwards, I was horrified to see the bird in the cat’s mouth. I extricated it, but it died a few minutes later, greatly to my distress. Mr E. F. Stead, of Ilam, Whose property adr joins ours, identified it as a shining cuckoo ’* Another note on the shining cuckoo is from Mrs F. M. Mason, of Henderson, Waitemata County, who wrote on December 5; “I heard the visitor this morning. I had wondered if it would come to Henderson this year. During a visit to Huarau, Waipara, I heard shining cuckoos many times every day, and I often tried to see the songsters, but failed, as they were hidden in thick foliage. Two seasons ago I saw one in my garden, and had a long look at it; it was very beautiful in its green shining coat, and its sweet song was delightful. I heard it many times, particularly in the early morning. They sang all day long in the native bush near the homestead where I stayed.”