Dryopteridaceae - Buckler Fern family

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Ferns & Horsetails

See our Recording Trees, Wildflowers & Grasses page for useful guidance on what to record.

More on recording in Leicestershire and Rutland and contacts for our County Recorders are on the webpage of our local VC55 branch of the BSBI.

Clive Stace’s ‘New Flora of the British Isles' - 4th edition (C&M Floristics, 2019) is the standard reference book that NatureSpot uses for verifying records.

Click on the headings below to expand/contract the text.

Leicestershire and Rutland resources

NatureSpot video: Ferns for Fanatics - watch a presentation by the VC55 County Recorder, Geoffrey Hall, on the ferns of Leicestershire and Rutland.

VC55 Rare Plant Register (Hall, Woodward) - see this link for details.

Useful websites and publications

Keys and a glossary of terms on the British Pteridological Society's website - https://ebps.org.uk/ferns/identification/

Merryweather, J. & Roberts, C. 2005 Common Ferns (FSC 'Wild ID' guide) - a useful and affordable fold-out guide to the commonest ferns of the UK

Merryweather, J. 2007. The Fern Guide: A Field Guide to the ferns, clubmosses, quillworts and horsetails of the British Isles (FSC: AIDGAP) link

If you know of other websites or books that you would recommend, do let us know: info@naturespot.co.uk

Ferns

Dryopteridaceae - Buckler Fern family

In this family are our commonest large woodland ferns - the Male ferns, Buckler ferns and Shield ferns, with pinnate leaves, growing from underground rhizomes. Growth is usually in tufts or shuttlecocks, and they have scaly stems or 'rhachis' and large leaves or fronds divided on either side of the rhachis into leaflets, called 'pinnae'.

The 'sori' underneath the pinnae carry the spores. They are either side of the midrib and are rounded, with a cover or 'indusium'. This is kidney-shaped in Dryopteris and round with a central stalk in Polystichum.

The degree to which the pinnae are divided is a helpful diagnostic character, but the terminology can be confusing - and identification guides may have different interpretation of the amount of frond division. The pinnae may be sub-divided again into 'pinnules', and then divided again into 'pinnulets'. Sometimes this is called '1-pinnate', '2-pinnate' and '3-pinnate', or 'bi-pinnate' and 'tri-pinnate'. Sometimes the pinnae are partly divided, with lobes that may be deeply cut, but don't go right down to the midrib of the pinna; this is called 'pinnately lobed' or 'pinnatifid'. If the lobes are cut down to the midrib, they are called 'pinnatisect'. Some specimens are intermediate, and it can be difficult to work out the type of leaf-division. Immature fronds may be less divided than adult fronds, and the lower or upper parts of the fronds are often uncharacteristic - so always look at the central part of a mature frond.

Dryopteris have rounded lobes; Polystichum have acutely pointed lobes drawn out into 'whiskers'. Lady Fern (Athyrium filix-femina) is similar, with finely divided leaves, but is in a different family with 'C' or 'V' shaped sori.