Phegopteris hexagonoptera

Broad beech fern
Phegopteris hexagonoptera in spring
Conservation status
Secure  (NatureServe) [1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Division:	Polypodiophyta
Class:	Polypodiopsida
Order:	Polypodiales
Suborder:	Aspleniineae
Family:	Thelypteridaceae
Genus:	Phegopteris
Species:	P. hexagonoptera
Binomial name
Phegopteris hexagonoptera (Michx.) Fée
Distribution
Synonyms
Dryopteris hexagonoptera(Michx.) C. Chr. Thelypteris hexagonoptera(Michx.) Weath.

Phegopteris hexagonoptera, commonly called the broad beech fern, is a common herbacious perennial forest fern native to the eastern United States and adjacent Ontario. ^{[2] [3] [4]} It grows from a creeping rootstock, sending up individual fronds that more or less clump. Its native habitat includes moist, undisturbed, hardwood forests. ^[5]

The fronds are broadly triangular. The specific epithet hexagonoptera, Latin for "six-sided wing", refers to the wings of leaf tissue along the rachis between the basal pinnae. ^[2]

Sori are small, round, and naked. ^[6] This aspect of the plant has caused it in the past to be placed, at first, in the genus Polypodium , then grouped with genus Dryopteris , then with the genus Thelypteris . Genetic analysis has shown the genus Phegopteris to be a sister clade to the rest of the thelypteroid ferns. ^{[ citation needed ]}

This fern makes an excellent garden plant, gradually filling in a bed. ^{[ citation needed ]}

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1803, typified on an illustration by Plukenet, by André Michaux, who named it Polypodium hexagonopterum. His description refers to an oblong-hexagonal membrane connecting opposite pinnae, presumably the source of the specific epithet. ^[7]

References

1. "NatureServe Explorer 2.0 - Phegopteris hexagonoptera Broad Beechfern". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
2. "Phegopteris hexagonoptera (Broad Beech Fern, Southern Beech Fern)". NC State Extension Plants. North Carolina State University. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
3. Tryon, RM (1936). "Ferns of the Dune Region of Indiana". American Midland Naturalist. 17 (2): 425–429. doi:10.2307/2419969. JSTOR   2419969.
4. Small, John (1975). Ferns of the vicinity of New York: being descriptions of the fern-plants growing naturally within a hundred miles of Manhattan Island, with notes. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN   0-486-23118-6.
5. "Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - The University of Texas at Austin". www.wildflower.org. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
6. "Phegopteris hexagonoptera (broad beech fern)". Minnesota Wildflowers. Minnesota Wildflowers (Information compiled by Stan Tekiela). Retrieved 2025-06-25.
7. Michaux, André (1803). Flora boreali-americana (in Latin). Vol. 2. Paris: Charles Crapelet. p. 271.

Media related to Phegopteris hexagonoptera at Wikimedia Commons