Native Ferns

Athyrium filix-femina
LADY FERN

GENERAL:  Fronds clustered, erect and spreading, to 2 m tall; rhizomes stout, ascending to erect, covered with scales and old leaf stalk bases.

LEAVES:  Stipes short, fragile, scaly at the base, much shorter than the blades; blades narrowly to broadly lance-shaped, tapering at both ends (with a diamond-shaped profile), 2-3 times pinnate; leaflets 20-40 pairs, upper and lower ones progressively reduced; ultimate segments toothed or lobed.

SORI:  Elongate and curved, oblong to horseshoe-shaped; indusium also elongate and curved, attached on 1 side, with hairs and teeth, soon shriveling.

ECOLOGY:  Moist to wet forests, swamps, thickets, openings, slide tracks, stream-banks, gullies, meadows and clearings; at all elevations.

Blechnum spicant
DEER FERN

GENERAL:  Medium-sized, evergreen, tufted at the end of a short, stout rhizome.

LEAVES:  Fronds of 2 kinds: sterile leaves often pressed to the ground, 20-80 cm (to 1m) tall or long, evergreen, leathery; stipes purplish-brown; leaflets 35-70 pairs, widely spaced, oblong, to 5 cm long and 3-7 mm wide, progressively reduced towards the top and bottom; fertile leaves similar but upright, arising from centre of clump, deciduous and with much narrower (to 2 mm wide) leaflets that are sometimes rolled in near-tubes around the sori.

SORI:  Continuous, distributed near the margin; protected by a continuous translucent brown indusium attached close to the leaflet edge.

ECOLOGY:  Moist to wet forests, wet slide areas under alder, stream-banks, occasionally in bogs; lowlands to middle or even subalpine elevations.

Dryopteris expansa
SPINY WOOD FERN

GENERAL:  Fronds clustered, erect and spreading, to 1 m tall; rhizomes stout, ascending to erect, clothed with chaffy, brown scales.

LEAVES:  Stipes scaly at the base, usually shorter than the blades; blades broadly triangular to egg-shaped to broadly oblong, 3 times pinnate; leaflets 5-20 pairs, the lowest pair broadly triangular and asymmetrical; ultimate segments toothed; the 2 basal ones much larger than the others (spur-like).

SORI:  Rounded, partially covered by the rounded indusium.

ECOLOGY:  Moist forests and openings, scree slopes;  low to subalpine elevations.

Polystichum munitum
SWORD FERN

GENERAL:  Large (to 1.5 m tall, but smaller in the north), evergreen, with erect leaves forming a crown from a stout, woody, scaly rhizome.

LEAVES:  Stipe dry-scaly; blade lance-shaped, erect to arching, once-pinnate; leaflets alternate, pointed, sharp toothed with incurved spine-tips, each with a small lobe pointing forward at the bottom.

SORI:  Large, circular, about halfway between the midvein and the margin; indusium round with fringed margins, centrally attached.

ECOLOGY:  Moist forest at low to middle elevations; abundant and widespread from central Vancouver Island and adjacent mainland south, less common further north.