| Alpine lady-fern | |
|---|---|
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Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Division: | Polypodiophyta |
| Class: | Polypodiopsida |
| Order: | Polypodiales |
| Suborder: | Aspleniineae |
| Family: | Athyriaceae |
| Genus: | Athyrium |
| Species: | A. distentifolium |
| Binomial name | |
| Athyrium distentifolium Tausch ex Opiz | |
Athyrium distentifolium commonly known as alpine lady-fern is a perennial fern found in widely in the Northern Hemisphere.
This plant is light green with a somewhat upright rootstock. The leaves, 30-70 cm, form as fascicle at the tip of the rootstock. The petiole is at most a fourth of the length of the leaf blade and scaled. The leaf blade is narrowing towards both the base and tip, repeatedly double pinnate. The leaflets are acuminate and pinnules are serrate or pinnately lobed. The sporangium are on the underside of the leaves in indusium-less sori. [1]
The plant is native to Finland and its fjelds. There it grows best in bare fjeld regions, in the slopes long moistened by the meltwaters from the spots of snow. In the lower alpine regions within easy reach of the birch groves and sometimes in the birch zones, this plant grows at the edges of tall-grass meadows. [1]
When it comes to soil, this plant is not too demanding; it is said to even somewhat prefer acidic soil and avoid lime. Its own leaflitter is at least acidic and at least not many other vascular plants grow around it. [1]
It is a common upland variety above 600 metres in the Highlands of Scotland, with more than 10% of the UK population being found in the Cairngorm mountains, especially on scree slopes in Glen Feshie, and on Ben Avon, Ben MacDui and Beinn a' Bhùird. Regarded as nationally scarce, it is a snow-tolerant species. The stunted form var. flexile, which is found at 750 metres and above, is found at only 4 sites and is endemic to Scotland. [2] [3] [4]
The subspecies americanum is found in the mountains of western United States, Alaska, Canada and coastal Greenland, [5] and is sometimes classified as a separate species Athyrium americanum.
The Finnish name of the plant, tunturihiirenporras, directly translates to "fjeld mouse's stair", suggesting it to be the fjeld "version" of Athyrium filix-femina .
The Aspleniaceae (spleenworts) are a family of ferns, included in the order Polypodiales. The composition and classification of the family have been subject to considerable changes. In particular, there is a narrow circumscription, Aspleniaceae s.s., in which the family contains only two genera, and a very broad one, Aspleniaceae s.l., in which the family includes 10 other families kept separate in the narrow circumscription, with the Aspleniaceae s.s. being reduced to the subfamily Asplenioideae. The family has a worldwide distribution, with many species in both temperate and tropical areas. Elongated unpaired sori are an important characteristic of most members of the family.
Dryopteris expansa, the alpine buckler fern, northern buckler-fern or spreading wood fern, is a species of perennial fern native to cool temperate and subarctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere, south at high altitudes in mountains to Spain and Greece in southern Europe, to Japan in eastern Asia, and to central California in North America. It prefers cool, moist mixed or evergreen forests and rock crevices on alpine slopes, often growing on rotting logs and tree stumps and rocky slopes. It is characteristically riparian in nature, and is especially associated with stream banks.
Dryopteris filix-mas, the male fern, is a common fern of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, native to much of Europe, Asia, and North America. It favours damp shaded areas in the understory of woodlands, but also shady places on hedge-banks, rocks, and screes. Near the northern limit of its distribution it prefers sunny, well-drained sites. It is much less abundant in North America than in Europe.
Athyrium filix-femina, the lady fern or common lady-fern, is a large, feathery species of fern native to temperate Asia, Europe, North Africa, Canada and the US. It is often abundant in damp, shady woodland environments and is often grown for decoration.
Dryopteris marginalis, vernacularly known as the marginal shield fern or marginal wood fern, is a perennial species of fern found in damp shady areas throughout eastern North America, from Texas to Minnesota and Newfoundland. It favors moderately acid to circumneutral soils in cooler areas but is fairly drought-resistant once established. In the warmer parts of its range, it is most likely to be found on north-facing non-calcareous rock faces. It is common in many altitudes throughout its range, from high ledges to rocky slopes and stream banks. Marginal wood fern's name derives from the fact that the sori are located on the margins, or edges of the leaflets.
Botrychium pumicola, with the common name pumice moonwort, is a rare fern.
Dryopteris carthusiana is a perennial species of fern native to damp forests throughout the Holarctic Kingdom. It is known as the narrow buckler-fern in the United Kingdom, and as the spinulose woodfern in North America.
Dryopteris cristata is a perennial species of fern native to wetlands throughout the Northern Hemisphere. It is known as crested wood fern, crested buckler-fern or crested shieldfern. This plant is a tetraploid species of hybrid origin, one parent being Dryopteris ludoviciana and the other being the unknown, apparently extinct species, dubbed Dryopteris semicristata, which is also one of the presumed parents of Dryopteris carthusiana. D. cristata in turn is one of the parents of Dryopteris clintoniana, another fern of hybrid origin.
Phegopteris connectilis, commonly known as long beech fern, northern beech fern, and narrow beech fern, is a species of clonal fern native to forests of the Northern Hemisphere.
Athyrium flexile, commonly known as Newman's lady-fern or the flexile lady fern, is a taxon of which is fern endemic to Scotland, it has been regarded as a species but it is considered to be an ecotype of the Alpine lady fern. This fern is pale to yellow green in colour and has elliptic, double pinnate leaves which are deciduous. This ecotype grows more quickly and matures faster than the Alpine lady fern in substrates which have low levels of nutrients and is outcompeted by the Alpine lady fern in other situations.
Botrychium lunaria is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae known by the common name moonwort or common moonwort. It is the most widely distributed moonwort, growing throughout the Northern Hemisphere across Eurasia and from Alaska to Greenland, as well as temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere.
Cystopteris fragilis is a species of perennial fern known by the common names brittle bladder-fern and common fragile fern. It can be found worldwide, generally in shady, moist areas.
Asplenium montanum, commonly known as the mountain spleenwort, is a small fern endemic to the eastern United States. It is found primarily in the Appalachian Mountains from Vermont to Alabama, with a few isolated populations in the Ozarks and in the Ohio Valley. It grows in small crevices in sandstone cliffs with highly acid soil, where it is usually the only vascular plant occupying that ecological niche. It can be recognized by its tufts of dark blue-green, highly divided leaves. The species was first described in 1810 by the botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow. No subspecies have been described, although a discolored and highly dissected form was reported from the Shawangunk Mountains in 1974. Asplenium montanum is a diploid member of the "Appalachian Asplenium complex," a group of spleenwort species and hybrids which have formed by reticulate evolution. Members of the complex descended from A. montanum are among the few other vascular plants that can tolerate its typical habitat.
Asplenium pinnatifidum, commonly known as the lobed spleenwort or pinnatifid spleenwort, is a small fern found principally in the Appalachian Mountains and the Shawnee Hills, growing in rock crevices in moderately acid to subacid strata. Originally identified as a variety of walking fern, it was classified as a separate species by Thomas Nuttall in 1818. It is believed to have originated by chromosome doubling in a hybrid between walking fern and mountain spleenwort, producing a fertile tetraploid, a phenomenon known as alloploidy; however, the hypothesized parental hybrid has never been located. It is intermediate in morphology between the parent species: while its leaf blades are long and tapering like that of walking fern, the influence of mountain spleenwort means that the blades are lobed, rather than whole. A. pinnatifidum can itself form sterile hybrids with several other spleenworts.
Homalosorus is a genus of fern with only one species, Homalosorus pycnocarpos. It may also be referred to by its older synonyms Athyrium pycnocarpon and Diplazium pycnocarpon. Commonly referred to as the narrow-leaved glade fern, narrow-leaved-spleenwort, or glade fern, it is endemic to eastern North America and typically grows in moist woodlands. Once classified in the family Athyriaceae due to its linear, often doubled sori, in the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016, it is placed in the small family Diplaziopsidaceae, whose other three species are native to east Asia. Other sources place the genus in the subfamily Diplaziopsidoideae of a very broadly defined family Aspleniaceae, equivalent to the suborder Aspleniineae in PPG I.
Asplenium bradleyi, commonly known as Bradley's spleenwort or cliff spleenwort, is a rare epipetric fern of east-central North America. Named after Professor Frank Howe Bradley, who first collected it in Tennessee, it may be found infrequently throughout much of the Appalachian Mountains, the Ozarks, and the Ouachita Mountains, growing in small crevices on exposed sandstone cliffs. The species originated as a hybrid between mountain spleenwort and ebony spleenwort ; A. bradleyi originated when that sterile diploid hybrid underwent chromosome doubling to become a fertile tetraploid, a phenomenon known as allopolyploidy. Studies indicate that the present population of Bradley's spleenwort arose from several independent doublings of sterile diploid hybrids. A. bradleyi can also form sterile hybrids with several other spleenworts.
Adiantum viridimontanum, commonly known as Green Mountain maidenhair fern, is a fern found only in outcrops of serpentine rock in New England and Eastern Canada. The leaf blade is cut into finger-like segments, themselves once-divided, which are borne on the outer side of a curved, dark, glossy rachis. These finger-like segments are not individual leaves, but parts of a single compound leaf. The "fingers" may be drooping or erect, depending on whether the individual fern grows in shade or sunlight. Spores are borne under false indusia at the edge of the subdivisions of the leaf, a characteristic unique to the genus Adiantum.
Asplenium × gravesii, commonly known as Graves' spleenwort, is a rare, sterile, hybrid fern, named for Edward Willis Graves (1882–1936). It is formed by the crossing of Bradley's spleenwort (A. bradleyi) with lobed spleenwort (A. pinnatifidum). It is only found where its parent species are both present; in practice, this proves to be a few scattered sites in the Appalachian Mountains, Shawnee Hills, and Ozarks, reaching perhaps its greatest local abundance around Natural Bridge State Resort Park. Like its parents, it prefers to grow in acid soil in the crevices of sandstone cliffs.
Oreojuncus trifidus is a species of rush known by the common names highland rush and three-leaved rush. It is native to the Northern Hemisphere, where it is an arctic/montane species with an amphi-atlantic distribution.
Warnstorfia exannulata is a leafy branching wetland moss in the genus Warnstorfia within the family Amblystegiaceae and class Bryopsida. This bryopsida moss is also known as ringless-hook moss or Warnstorfia moss. It is the most common species of the genus in wetland environments and can be difficult to distinguish from others within the genus. It grows in acidic soils like fens and bogs, or in freshwater pools and lakes.
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