Plant Species: Dryopteris filix-mas, male fern
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Pteridophyta -- ferns
Class: Filicopsida
Order: Polypodiales
Family: Dryopteridaceae -- Wood Fern (formerly included in Polypodiaceae -- fern)
Genus: Dryopteris
Species: filix-mas
Variety:
Common Name: male fern
Species Code: DRFI2
Origin: Native to thickets and moist woods, especially in the mountainous portions of western North America from British Columbia south to New Mexico with scattered occurrences elsewhere. Circumboreal.
Rare: no
Form: fern, perennial, stems creeping to erect, to 90 cm tall.
Duration: perennial
Longevity:
Habitat Type: forest, shrub thickets
Wetland Indicator Status: not listed
Leaves: monomorphic; deciduous; petiole with brown chaffy scales; blade 20-100 cm long, bipinnate, pinnae large (to 15 cm long) and numerous, pinnules finely serrate.
Mature height: 36 inches
Sporulates:
Fruit: spores; sori borne on a vein between the midvein and the margin.
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by spores and vegetatively from a short, thick rhizome.
Perennating organ is a rhizome.
Spores are haploid. They germinate to form a gametophyte generation called a prothallus. The prothallus contains the sexual organs and sexual reproduction occurs there. Successful fertilization requires water between the prothallus and the soil. The fertilized egg develops into a new plant, the sporophyte (diploid) generation.
n=82.
Hybridization between species of Dryopteris is common. Northwestern D. filix-mas is a tetraploid species which may have formed either through allopolyploidy or autopolyploidy (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993+).
The rhizome has been used medicinally but can also be toxic.
Spores are windborne.
Comments: The original family Polypodiaceae has been divided into a number of families and Dryopteris placed in the family Dryopteridaceae.
Sun requirement: shade to partial sun
Soil moisture: mesic
Precipitation:
Fire:
Hazards:
Transplant time: fall or spring
Planting duration:
Seed comments: reproduces by spores
Key words: upland native fern
Alternate Genus: Polypodium
Alternate Species:
Alternate Variety:
Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Glacier National Park, Montana
Other Propagation Information:
Reproduces sexually by spores and vegetatively from a short, thick rhizome. Can probably be propagated by divisions.
Notes:
References:
Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/