I know I have promised Japanese ferns and they do follow, but I need to first talk about a certain Japanese person: Kazuo Tsuchiya. Kazu and his wife Marilyn are the teem behind Japan Specialty Group Tours. Kazu was not only our lead guide on the fern tour of Japan, he created the tour. From making sure we ate our breakfast and getting us on the right train as we parted the group at the end, he was constantly busy. But before the tour even started, months before, he was already making contacts with members of the Nihon Fern Club, hotels, trains and airlines, making sure all the details lined up for a pleasurable and efficient trip. I really enjoyed being able to kick back and go with the flow as they say. I enjoyed getting to just look at plants all day while someone else worried about departure times, lunches and comfort stops.
I also enjoyed getting to know Kazu, who is as cosmopolitan as Japanese. And was fast becoming a fern lover guiding this tour. I have always had a fondness for the Japanese people and culture, having grown up with a Japanese aunt who brought rice crackers with seaweed and Buddhism to the cultural back waters of Milwaukee in the 1960s. My early taste for the exotic was always satisfied by a visit to her house.
My taste for Japanese literature and art came much later. But my taste for Japanese ferns snuck up on me. I didn’t know I was growing so many Japanese ferns, which is unusual for me, trained in botany, always curious about where plants come from and how they grow.
As an American gardener I was looking forward to seeing ferns I use regularly growing in their native Japanese haunts.
There are around 600 species of ferns in Japan, making up a tenth of the flora, which comes in at a whopping 6000 or so species. There were days I could have swore they made up over half the flora standing knee deep in them under a canopy of towering conifers or evergreen oaks. Of course our focus was terribly myopic in its pursuit of ferns and only ferns—you realize I exaggerate, and even the most confirmed lifelong pteridomaniacs among us were curious about the wildflowers and trees too.
The final count was about 212 ferns in 10 days. I’m certain I did not see all of them, probably took note of only 100 and got identifiable pictures of about 60 of those. I thought about posting all of them here. But then thought again. I stopped at 30. It was hard to decide. A lot of choices were based on the quality of the photo, though some I included despite having a poor quality photo.
I thought first I would just post them by location. Then I thought of organizing them phyllogenetically? But most of my readers wouldn’t even understand what that meant. Then I thought of the gardeners among you and thought maybe by growth habit or habitat.
I finally settled on a more poetic and hapless track, starting with the ferns I grow already.

Autumn Fern (Dryopteris erythrosora) is rather inappropriately named. It does nothing exceptional in autumn nor does it first appear in autumn. Its name is based on the color of the emerging croziers in spring, which are a rich autumnal
orangey-red color. Actually it was a disappointment to see it in the forest of Shinobuyama in the middle of Fukushima City. Such an ordinary ferny-sort-of –fern, couldn’t possible be one of my favorite ferns to use as a garden designer.

Thick-stemmed Wood Fern (Dryopteris crassirhizoma) is the fern that made me a
dryopterimaniac. I am totally impressed with its dimension and a tendency toward “trunking”, rare in a hardy fern. But it is its beautiful unfolding spring foliage—it is a deciduous fern— that has won me over. Its ‘fearful symmetry’, as Blake would have it, rivals the spring flowers that grow around it. Seeing in growing along the Goshikinuma Trail (trail of the 5-colored ponds), I learned their loves for water, all summer long, something I didn’t give them in a clients garden back home, where it was beginning to fail. I moved it as soon as I got back

Auriculate Wood Fern (Athyrium otophorum) is another deciduous fern whose salient feature is the emerging new growth. An early favorite of mine. The very pale softer green of the leaf blade is contrasted by the dark maroon, almost black stipe and venation, mixes well with checker lilies in my garden. The specimen in the picture above was growing on the side of the road along the Kumano River.

Tassel Fern (Polystichum polyblepharum) is at this point a classic garden fern in the Pacific Northwest. I have not been able to grow it in my home garden. When I saw it growing out of this rock at the base of Nachi Falls in Wakayama Prefecture I realized the moisture it probably wanted was the continual mist from a waterfall, and not the waterlogged soils of the Snoqualmie Valley. That said it is a very tough fern even enduring our dry summers.

Hart’s Tongue Fern (Asplenium scolopendrium ssp. japonicum) is one of those primitive ferns which can be found throughout the Northern Hemisphere, and shows a great deal of variety. It is also the gateway drug for lance-leafed fern lovers leading to Pyrossias, and other more difficult ferns.

Japanese Holly Fern (Cyrtonium falcatum) is another fern I can’t stop trying to grow, even though I must say I find it difficult. But now that I realize that when the books say it is easy and can take dry conditions they weren’t talking about our dry growing season here on the west coast. They want hot monsoon rains to look this good. I will water mine more this summer.

Upside Down Fern (Arachnoides standishii) is the ferniest of the ferny-ferns I grow, and I love it for its softness in every aspect. Seeing it growing in great banks in Kuwanoki Valley in the soft and moist air of a rushing freshet, I realized I probably don’t water mine enough. Though the one I am growing survived our nasty winter under a pile of oak leaves, even retaining some green leaves, I have lost many over the years to neglect…but no more. When I see it in my garden now I remember that beautiful hike to a waterfall in Japan.

That was the end of the familiar ferns for me. The plants I had known from gardening in the Northwest for 28 years, still there were many fern that were so fern-like as to feel familiar. Actually I found these fern more challenging to identify and remember than the oddities. Was it an Athyrium or a Thelypteris? Was it a Drypoteris or a Polystichum? I must say I became very sensitive to all the little details that separate ferns into families, genera and species. This was the good fortune of travelling with experts, and having all the cares of life swept away, so that we could focus singularly.

Kiyosumi-hime-warabi (Dryopsis maximowicziana), for which I could find no common name in English, is a rarity. When I plugged the Japanese name into google translate I got “clarification princess fern”. Obviously something is off. That said it also appears as Dryopteris, especially in the Flora of China… I trust the pteridologists I traveled with, but you can see how confusion starts. The amazing detail of this fern is the tiny white scales on the leaf stalk, like delicately broken snowflakes, so hard to photograph in the dark understory of cryptomeria.

Wallace’s Brake Fern (Pteris wallichiana) with its grand size and rather weedy habit akin to our braken fern was very easy to distinguish among the many lesser ferns.

This Maiden Fern (Thelypteris accuminata) is another unruly spreader. But as someone who lives in a swamp, when I saw this fern in a Shingu park nearly floating on a pond I was tempted. The Maiden ferns don’t come very highly recommend by fern specialists. Too weedy! Is the simple answer. I have tried several in our garden, not only were they kept in check by slugs, they were eliminated.

This Spleenwort (Asplenium wilfordii) was absolutely unassuming, shy even among the bold forests of Kii Peninsula, It has a very limited distribution to the southern islands of Japan and South Korea.

Bearing a striking resemblance to our native Deer Fern this Shishi Gashira (Blechnum amabile) is endemic to the Japanese Islands and has a rather elegant growth habit.

The “Yokohama Lady Fern” (Athyrium yokoscensis)I s a wide ranging fern in Eastern Asia growing even into Siberia. It is prized for its shimmer almost silver foliage. Sue Olsen notes in her “Encyclopedia of Garden Ferns”: “this fern is currently being tested in Japan for phytoremediation purposes to remove cadmium from contaminated soils.” It is said to love heavy wet soils…I have just the place for one in my garden.

If all the 200 or so ferns we had seen on this trip had been ferny-ferns I might have fallen into a stupor by day 3. One of the Brits asked me at the end of each day, “Have you had enough ferns yet?” I responded defiantly: “Not Yet!” I must admit my bravado was an attempt to hide the fact I was overwhelmed by the shear volume of fronds examined, the lack of flowers and the dark locales. Still there was such a variety of ferns, such curiosities and beauties that each day I may have ended looking exhausted, but it was from living at such a high level of wonder each day.

The Kyushu Brake (Pteris kiuschiuensis) was one of the wonders. A very rare and limited fern, growing mainly on the southern islands of Japan. It quickly became my “favorite new fern” not because of its rarity, but because of its beauty. Exceptional leaf form in my mind.

The Weeping Fern (Lepisorus thunbergianus) is anything but rare. And nearly everywhere we went we saw it, even in Tokyo where it covered every surface at this Shinto Shrine in the heart of the Ometesando fashion district. It was the first fern I saw in Japan, and probably the last, but it never failed to charm me.

Selliguea hastata is one of the oddities I could find no information on. But had to include in this post just for the uniqueness of the foliage.

It’s hard to imagine that this False Spleenwort (Deparia lancea) is closely related to the Lady Ferns, some of the ferniest of ferns. One thing I learned on this trip was that genus had very little to do with leaf shape and more to do with small details, like scales, sorii or venation.

The Felt Fern (Pyrossia lingua, in his case) is noted for the coat of dense hairs on the underside of the leaf. They were very common in the Kii Peninsula. Here they covered a sacred boulder— making them also sacred ?— at the entrance to the Konouchi-jinja shrine. Our 6”4” translator, Asher-san, gives you an idea of how large these colonies can get, preferring rocks to soil, but plenty of warm rain.

Another anomale is the Spleenwort (Asplenium prolongatum) with its long frond tip. They actually “walk” through the forest, the tip landing and rooting and forming a new plant.

You might think, like I first did on first seeing it, that this plant is a grass or sedge, but it is a fern. Haplopteris flexuosa covered trunks rocks and other ferns in one of the darkest and dampest valleys we visited. Its Japanese name Iwa-yanagi-shida, means rock-willow-fern. I think you get the picture.

The Japanese Bead Fern (Lemmaphyllum microphyllum) could easily be mistaken for anything but a fern…

It covered the trunks of trees at Haytama-taisha shrine in Shingu.

This shrine was also home to this odd little fern, that at first I thought was a plantain. Ophioglossum petiolatum, known as Fuji-hana-yasuri—loosely translates to Fuji-flower-file, certainly the fertile frond looks file-like. It was growing in the gravel with other “weeds”.

In a park outside of Sendai we saw several species of moonwort. This Botrychium multifidum var. robustum was growing in the parking lot at our hotel in
Urabandi National Park. Like the above ophioglossum they only grow one true frond and one fertile frond each year. Impossible to cultivate they, were photographed obsessively wherever we went.

It was a rainy day when we descended into the valley of Koyazaka, the perfect day for seeing filmy ferns. Filmy fern are only one cell thick, like a highly developed moss, or a strange algae. The enthusiasm in the group for them was frenzied. We stood in line to take our turn at close up photography of this Hymenophyllum , while we got soaked.

Spikemosses, or Selaginellas as we ferny folk prefer to call them, are a genus of plants in their own family they fit somewhere between mosses and ferns in the great scheme of things. This is Selaginella moellendoerfii (the golden yellow foliage) growing in a garden in the village of Iseki, west of Shingu. There are many selaginellas in our Northwest Flora, and a few in our gardens. Obviously they are beautiful plants. I’d be a selaginellist if it weren’t for my fixation on ferns.

We saw Selaginella tamariscina in a variety of locations, but you really get beauty of the unique trunk-forming spikemoss in this container in a garden we visited in Iseki.

Not every thing was so delicate though. Once again Asher-san serves as scale for this tree fern (Cyathea spinulosa) growing along the road in the Kumanogawa Valley. If I understood correctly it is one of the northern most locations for this species and for tree ferns in general.

Though the tree ferns were impressive, this huge stand of Angiopteris lygodifolia in the private Hinoki forest preserve of Shoji-san, took my breath away. I was no longer overwhelmed, but immersed in pteridomania. I could have spent a whole day here….

Strange things were seen. This is a Quillwort (Isoetes japonica), usually it grows under water but the waters of Lake Hibara were low, making it easy for us to walk right up to it on the muddy flat where a stream enter the lake. Though there are 190 or so species in the genus, it is the only genus in the family Isoetaceae.

At the very end of a very long day of fern viewing we drove to a strange little valley, and hiked in with the promise of something special. I didn’t have it in me, fern-fatigue I guess. But some thing very unique was promised, so I followed the troops into a little dry stream bed where we saw this fern: Cheiropleuria integrifolia. This was probably the rarest of the ferns we saw and unique in its hosta-like appearance. My tiredness vanished, once again awash in wonder.

I envied this little frog his eternally ferny existence, perched in a giant king fern in the forest of Shoji-san near Shingu. I would be heading to Tokyo and human craziness the next day. And leaving the wonderful ferns and the merry pteridomaniacs behind.