To All Who Follow the Long Brown PathHere are fifty fascinating ferns of the wild, whose ancestry antedates Adam by unnumbered eons, and whose myriads of fair and friendly children await your coming in every field and every forest, by every stream and on every mountain. Their ways are truly ways of pleasantness and the path to their dwelling place is a path of perfect peace. May this unpretentious Field Book of Ferns spur you to follow this path with eyes opened to the exquisite beauty that greets you on every hand
These friendly children greet visitors to Eidolon Nature Preserve in Morgan County, WV.
Clockwise from top left: Common Polypody, Ebony Spleenwort, Sensitive Fern, Bracken Fern, Rock with Southern Lady Fern. Durand writes that Spleenworts were so named due to the belief in their ability to treat diseases of the spleen, and that Common Polypody was a favorite remedy for the 'blues' and for 'fearsome and troublesome' dreams and nightmares. I call these ferns 'heavenly.'
