Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Woodwardia virginica (L.) J.E. Smith
- Family: Fern (Polypodiaceae)
- Spores: June-September
- Field Marks: This fern differs from all others by its double row of elongated sori on the back of the normal-sized leaves.
- Habitat: Damp thickets, swamps, bottomlands, bayheads.
- Habit: Perennial fern with long, slender, black, branched rhizomes.
- Stems: All underground in the form of rhizomes.
- Leaves: Ascending, up to 2 feet long, up to 9 inches wide, 1 1/2 pinnate, oblong-lanceolate in outline, the segments bluntly pointed, somewhat leathery, more or less smooth.
- Sori: In double rows on either side of the vein of the leaf segment, elongated.
- Notes: Some of the leaves remain sterile all their lives.
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