The pleasant odor of the plant remains many years in the herbarium. The early writers compare the fragrance to that of raspberries, and Milde repeats the observation. Hooker and Greville thought it “not unlike that of the common primrose.” Maximowicz states that the odor is sometimes lacking. Milde quotes Redowsky as saying that the Yakoots of Siberia use the plant in place of tea; and, having tried the experiment myself, I can testify to the not unpleasant and very fragrant astringency of the infusion.
The illustration is taken from a plant collected by Mr. D. A. Watt on the Saguenay River, in Canada.
ASPIDIUM GOLDIANUM, Hooker. Goldie’s Wood-Fern.
Aspidium Goldianum:—Root-stock stout, ascending, chaffy; stalks about a foot long, chaffy at the base with large ovate-acuminate ferruginous or deep-lustrous-brown scales; fronds standing in a crown, one to two and a half feet long, broadly ovate, or the fertile ones oblong-ovate, chartaceo-membranaceous, nearly smooth, bright-green above, a little paler beneath, pinnate; pinnæ broadly lanceolate, five to eight inches long, one to two and a half broad, usually, especially the lowest ones, narrower at the base than in the middle, pinnatifid almost to the midrib; segments numerous, oblong-linear, often slightly falcate, crenate, or serrate with sharp incurved teeth; veins free, mostly with three veinlets, the lowest superior veinlets bearing near their base the large sori very near the midvein; indusium large, flat, smooth, orbicular with a narrow sinus.
_Aspidium Goldianum_, Hooker, in Goldie’s Acc. of rare Canad. Pl. in Edinb. Phil. Journ., vi., p. 333; Fl. Am.-Bor., ii., p. 260.—Torrey, Fl. New York, ii., p. 495.—Gray, Manual, ed. ii., p. 598, ed. v., p. 666.—Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 92; Aspid., p. 56.—Williamson, Ferns of Kentucky, p. 95, t. xxxiv.
_Nephrodium Goldianum_, Hooker & Greville, Ic. Fil. t. cii.—Hooker, Sp. Fil., iv., p. 121.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 272.
_Lastrea Goldiana_, Presl, Tent. Pterid., p. 76.—Lawson, in Canad. Nat. i., p. 282.
_Dryopteris Goldiana_, Gray, Manual, ed. i., p. 631.
_Aspidium Filix-mas_, Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept., ii., p. 662.
Hab.—Deep, rocky woods, from Canada and Maine to Indiana, Virginia and Kentucky. It is also named in local catalogues of the flora of Wisconsin and Kansas. Not known in the Old World.