GOERT: Garry Oak Ecosystems Recovery Team

Small, tufted evergreen fern up to 35 cm tall. Leaves green on top and golden beneath growing from numerous short darkly-scaled rhizomes. Stipes twice as long as blades, wiry and shiny brown. Blades broadly triangular in outline, two to three times pinnate. The two basal leaflets divided again and their lower segments longer than upper ones. Blades covered with a white to golden, waxy powder beneath. The sori are located in lines along branching veins on the underside of the leaflets; indusium absent (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Dave Polster.

Small evergreen perennial fern with short stems ascending from branched rhizomes clothed with scales. Sterile and fertile fronds markedly different. Leaf stipes straw-coloured. Sterile leaves to 20 cm tall usually three-times branched with thick, crispy-firm, egg-shaped blades. Leaflets mostly 3-10 pairs, largest at the base with ultimate segments finely-toothed. Fertile leaves to 30 cm tall. Blades broadly lance-shaped, two to three-times branched, leaflets mostly three to ten pairs with in-rolled margins and blunt tips. Sori continuous along the length of fertile leaflets and covered by the rolled margins (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Moralea Milne.

Delicate, small fern to 30 cm tall. Rhizomes are light brown, short and densely scaly. Stipes are straw-coloured, hairless and shorter than the blades. Blades are lance-shaped, taper at both ends and are two to three times pinnate with 8-18 pairs of leaflets; lower leaflets reduced in size and ultimate segments irregularly toothed. The small, round sori are partially covered with a delicate, hood-like, somewhat toothed or lobed indusium which soon withers and curls back (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Moralea Milne.

Small to medium sized evergreen fern to 70 cm tall (but often much smaller). Fronds grow from creeping, reddish-brown, scaly, licorice-flavoured rhizomes. Stipes straw-coloured, smooth, usually shorter than the blades. Blades to 50 cm long, once-pinnate; leaflets usually longer than 3 cm, with pointed tips and finely scalloped or toothed margins. Sori oval to round, with no indusium, in a single row on each side of the main vein (Pojar and MacKinnon, 1994). Photo by Dave Polster.