ferns ~ 12/07/13 ~ Fort Ord

western bracken fern (and possibly coastal wood fern)
Pteridium aquilinum var. pubescens (and possibly Dryopteris arguta)
Dennstaedtiaceae (and possibly Dryopteridaceae)

Look how prolific the ferns were this year.  Oh my!  I haven't been out to Fort Ord since May, so this was a little bit of a surprise to me.  While I'm normally not a big fan of brown, I appreciated the subtle variation of shades from copper to rusty chocolate. Doh!  When I took these pictures, I had assumed they were all western bracken fern. However, as I was checking information, I discovered there's a similar looking coastal wood fern also reported at Fort Ord.  Even if I had gotten decent close-ups, I'm not sure I'd be able to tell them apart.  I generally try to avoid fern IDs, but they were impossible to ignore this time.

western bracken fern ~ 05/14/11 ~ Fort Ord

western bracken fern
Pteridium aquilinum var. pubescens
Dennstaedtiaceae

I generally think of ferns as growing in heavily shaded areas near water sources, like at Garland Ranch Regional Park, Butano State Park, and Wilder Ranch State Park. However, this native bracken fern surprised me by growing profusely in a dry, sandy area after fire.

The first 2 pictures were taken in an area that was burned in 2009. In the second picture, past the line of what I believe are Ceanothus shrubs, there's a change in vegetation due to a change in the soil; initially I thought the change was due to different years of fires. The last picture was from an area that was burned in 2010. It looks like rows of a farm crop, which was a result of digital geophysics. I didn't understand the mapping process as it was briefly explained by Chris, who works for USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers) and was one of our guides. She had very long legs and I had to jog to keep up with her as she talked, so I missed most of the details. I do know heavy machinery was used to create the rows. Apparently, bracken fern is well adapted to fire and disturbed areas.

Our other guide Gail, who works for BRAC (Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission), mentioned she was reading a book that explained many western Native Americans used 6-foot long bracken fern rhizomes to create the dark designs in their basket weaving. As usual, I had to look it up. There are plenty of online pictures of willow or sedge baskets accented with redbud and bracken fern "roots". The only site I could find to show anything about actually using rhizomes is this Yokuts Baskets site - make sure to take a look at two of the pictures on the bottom of the page; it looks like a lot of work. Mostly, I found online mentions of eating bracken fern, even though it is generally considered toxic.

For more information than you can shake a stick (er, rhizome) at, check out this very informative rook.org site about Pteridium aquilinum.