The ferns are a group of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular, i.e., having specialized tissues that conduct water and nutrients and in having life cycles in which the branched sporophyte is the dominant phase.
Ophioglossum vulgatum, commonly known as adder's-tongue, southern adder's-tongue or adder's-tongue fern, is a species of fern in the family Ophioglossaceae.
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.
Phegopteris hexagonoptera, commonly called the broad beech fern, is a common forest fern in the eastern United States and adjacent Ontario. It grows from a creeping rootstock, sending up individual fronds that more or less clump. Its native habitat includes moist, undisturbed, hardwood forests.
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.
Asplenium vespertinum is a species of fern known by the common name western spleenwort. It is native to southern California and Baja California, where it grows in moist, shady, rocky places, such as the shadows beneath cliff overhangs.
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.
Astragalin is a chemical compound. It can be isolated from Phytolacca americana or in the methanolic extract of fronds of the fern Phegopteris connectilis. It is also found in wine.
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 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.
Diplazium australe, commonly known as the Austral lady fern, is a small fern occurring in eastern Australia, New Zealand and Norfolk Island. The habitat is moist shaded areas, often occurring in rainforest.
Pteris ensiformis, the slender brake, silver lace fern, sword brake fern, or slender brake fern, is a plant species of the genus Pteris in the family Pteridaceae. It is found in Asia and the Pacific.
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.
Nephrolepis cordifolia is a fern native to the global tropics, including northeastern Australia and Asia. It has many common names including fishbone fern, tuberous sword fern, tuber ladder fern, erect sword fern, narrow sword fern and ladder fern, and herringbone fern. It is similar to the related fern Nephrolepis exaltata.
Polystichum tsus-simense, commonly known as the Korean rock fern, is a perennial herbaceous plant native to East Asia. Its common name corresponds with its ability to grow in shady areas of rock walls. This fern species is a familiar ornamental plant grown in home gardens.
Asplenium × wherryi, known as Wherry's spleenwort, is a rare hybrid fern of the Appalachian Mountains. The sterile triploid offspring of mountain spleenwort (A. montanum) and Bradley's spleenwort (A. bradleyi), it is known from a few sites where those species grow together. First collected by Edgar T. Wherry in 1935, it was largely ignored until a new colony was found in 1961, and the species was named in his honor.
Coryphopteris simulata, synonym Thelypteris simulata, is a species of fern native to the Northeastern United States. It is known by two common names: bog-fern and Massachusetts fern. It is often confused with the silvery spleenwort, New York fern, and the marsh fern due to similarities in shape and size.
Oenanthe silaifolia, narrow-leaved water-dropwort, is a flowering plant in the carrot family, which is native to Europe and adjacent parts of Asia and North Africa. It is an uncommon plant of water-meadows and wetlands.
Athyrium auriculatum is a fern species endemic to Taiwan. This fern characterized by short, erect stems covered with black-brown to black, narrowly lanceolate scales. The leaves are clustered at the top, with leaf stalks measuring 15–25 cm (5.9–9.8 in) in length and bearing scales at the base similar to those at the stem tip. The leaf blades are triangular, 20–25 cm (7.9–9.8 in) long, 16–20 cm (6.3–7.9 in) wide, with a two-pinnate compound structure. They are papery in texture, and both the leaf and pinna axes are covered with club-shaped glandular hairs. The pinnae are distinctly stalked, and the surface of the pinna axis features hard, short spines. Small pinnae emerge first on the base of the larger pinnae, measuring 15–22 mm in length and 8–10 mm in width, with rounded and slightly lobed tips. The spore membranes are short, linear, occasionally appearing J-shaped, and are located near the small pinna axis. This fern is a terrestrial, growing in semi-shade under the forest or on the edge of the forest.
