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Alpine Bladder Fern:                                                                                 BACK  Pictures

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Cystopteris alpina (Lam.) Desvaux                                                                      Alpine Bladder Fern

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Extinct ?

Native. Not to be confused with C. montana Mountain Bladder Fern.There is no mention of C. alpina in Stace 2nd edition. or in Page 2nd edition, but Fred Rumsey [British Wildlife 15:95 2003] traces its neglected occurrence in Britain, and George S Gibson in Gibson's Flora of Essex 1862 fully documents its occurrence in abundance on an old wall in Low Leyton, Walthamstow from 1778 to 1841. Although previously dismissed as a probably planted alien, its occurrence from at least 1872 to 1911 at Cronkley Fell, and during the same period on rocks in Harwood Dale, both in Teesdale; documented by Fred Rumsey; raise the possibility that the Low Leyton colony may have established itself from spores blown over from the continent, where it grows in alpine areas on calcareous rocks and soils, from Norway south to the Pyrenees. It differs from our other British bladder ferns in having its pinnae dissected in irregular parallel-sided pinnules, with truncate, notched ends, almost all the veins ending at the base of the notches. Gibson gives the following account: A manuscript note, apparently written by T.F.Forster about 1778, in the Plantae Woodfordienses, is the earliest note of it. W.Pamplin saw it abundantly about the early part of the present century [T. Moore, in Hooker's Journal of Botany, 8.2]. E. Forster took Sir William Hooker to the station "more than half a century ago. It was not plentiful then, and there is too much reason to suspect that it had been planted." [Hooker's British Ferns, pl.24. London.1862]. It was re-found about 1938 [Phytologist I:712]. J.W.Salter and H.Button gathered giant specimens inside the wall in 1840 or 1841, and perhaps it is not quite gone. T.Moore says, "The plant is at the present time, unfortunately, nearly destroyed by repairs, though it exists in more than one station in the neighbourhood" [Nature Printed British Ferns I2:27]. He concludes with "Under these circumstances it cannot be considered a native British Plant". What does T.Moore mean by "more than one station in the neighbourhood" does he mean that it had been spread around to several gardens in the area? or is he referring to several patches scattered along the same old wall?