When Canada's first long-distance walking trail was formed in the middle years of the last century the organizers chose as their symbol the Walking Fern, Asplenium microphyllum. Ontario's Bruce Trail follows the Niagara Escarpment from Niagara Fall for 800 kilometres north to the tip of the Bruce Peninsular. As elsewhere in eastern North America, this rugged limestone country offers an especially suitable habit for this unusual fern, unlike almost any other.
If your idea of a fern is an upright plant with lacy and, well, fern-like foliage, the Walking Fern going to surprise you. That is if you can find it. W. Sherwood Fox wrote in The Bruce Beckons (1962) of the east coast precipitous cliffs overlooking the spectacular Georgian Bay:
