Northern Ontario Plant Database

General: Perennial fern with similar sterile and fertile fronds (monomorphic), with a crown of fronds growing from a thick, ascending rhizome. Stipe-bases of old fronds persistent at the top of the rhizome.

Fronds: Bipinnate, somewhat evergreen, firm to leathery (coriaceous), dark green or bluish-green above, paler beneath, to 6 dm long and 2–3 dm wide. Frond lanceolate to oblong-ovate, pinnae lanceolate, pinnules oblong, with entire to toothed margins and blunt to acute tips. The stipe is scaly towards the base.

Sporangia: Arranged in clusters (sori) near the margins of the pinnules. Each sorus is covered by a kidney-shaped (reniform) indusium, 0.7–1.8 mm wide.

Habitat and Range: Open woods, clearings, rocky slopes. The marginal wood fern is a temperate, eastern North American species that through southern and eastern Ontario north to the Algoma District in northeastern Ontario. It is not know from north and west of Lake Superior.

Internet Images: The Dryopteris marginalis webpage from the Gallery of Connecticut Wildflowers, a website of the Connecticut Botanical Society.

Back to species list