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| Male Fern, Drypoteris filix-mas. In my garden in Hayes, 5 December 2013. |
The Male Fern is probably Britain's commonest fern. This one grew unasked in my carnivorous plant tray, and has thrives since I transplanted it to a shady spot in my garden.
It is bipinnate; the pinnae branch into pinnules. This puts it in between the simply pinnate ferns like the Polypodies and the tripinnate Broad Buckler Fern, both of which I have posted recently.
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| Soft Shield Fern, Polystichum setiferum. Near Leaves Green, 15 December 2012. |
It looks superficially similar to this Soft Shield Fern that I saw in a small wood near Leaves Green a year ago. But if you compare the pinnae close up, like this:
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| Male Fern, Drypoteris filix-mas, and Soft Shield Fern, Polystichum setiferum. Pinnules compared. |
You can see that the Soft Shield Fern is almost tripinnate, and has "thumbs" at the base of its pinnules.
It looks to me like your commonest fern (and all are lovely) is the same as our Southern Woods Fern, of which I have posted a new photo, made for you, in my Album dated Dec 15.
ReplyDeleteBut I like your rarer ones even better.
A very nice photo; thanks. It looks similar, but some of the fronds on yours are tripinnate, so it must be a different species. When I looked up the Southern Wood Fern I got Dryopteris ludoviciana, which isn't tripinnate, so can yours be this? Or is it some other fern which is ALSO called the Southern Wood Fern? Or a case of mistaken identity? The Eastern Hay-scented Fern is tripinnate. I think there are many possibilities.
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