Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Pteridium aquilinum (L.) Kuhn
- Family: Fern (Polypodiaceae)
- Spores: Summer
- Field Marks: This fern is distinguished by its overall triangular leaf shape and its leaf segments folded under along the edges. The sporangia. line the edge of the leaf.
- Habitat: Old fields, dry woods, edge of prairies.
- Habit: Perennial fern from extensively creeping, scaleless rhizomes.
- Stems: Present only as underground rhizomes.
- Leaves: Triangular in outline, bipinnate-pinnatifid, smooth or finely hairy, up to 3 feet long; leaf stalks stout, smooth or finely hairy near the base.
- Reproductive Structures: Sporangia borne in sori, the sori continuous along the edge of the leaf, covered by the folded under leaf edges.
- Notes: This fern is frequent in burned over areas.
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