The Lady Slipper newsletter of the Kentucky Native Plant Society has been published since the Society’s founding in 1986. We occasionally feature an article from a past issue. This year’s Fall Meeting will include a hike at Pine Creek Barrens Nature Preserve in Bullitt county. This article, from the fall of 2014, is about a rare species of fern, the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis, found only in Kentucky in Bullitt county. The location of this fern is along Cedar Creek, in similar habitat to Pine Creek Barrens, and is about a mile away as the crow flies. This article first appeared in the fall of 2014, Vol. 29, No. 3. If you would like to see other past issues, visit the Lady Slipper Archives, where all issues from Vol. 1, No. 1, February 1986 to Vol. 39, 2024, can be found.

The Slender Lip Fern in Kentucky

by James Beck

A single low dolomite ledge near Cedar Creek in Bullitt County harbors one of the most unique plant populations in Kentucky. At a distance this might appear to be a population of the hairy lip fern, Myriopteris lanosa (Michx.) Grusz & Windham, a species known from >20 Kentucky counties. Most will probably know M. lanosa as Cheilanthes lanosa (Michx.) D.C. Eaton, a species recently transferred (along with most North and Central American species of Cheilanthes) to Myriopteris (Grusz and Windham 2013). However, closer inspection will reveal that these Bullitt Co. ferns have smaller, nearly beadlike ultimate segments that are densely hairy underneath, keying clearly to the slender lip fern, Myriopteris gracilis Fée (Cheilanthes feeii T. Moore), in either Jones (2005) or Cranfill (1980).