The Oak Fern 



because of its robust appearance and erect growth as 

 contrasted with the graceful, drooping, and delicate 

 fronds of the Lady Fern. We must beware of 

 imagining that there is any relationship between the 

 Male Fern and the Lady Fern further than that they 

 both belong to the same order of plants namely, 

 Filices, or Ferns. 



In a dry, shaded part of our wood grows the delicate 

 little Oak Fern, Polypodium Dryopteris. 



It is one of the most fragile of our native ferns, 

 readily destroyed by the buffeting of the wind or by too 

 great exposure to sunlight. The rhizomes of this fern 

 are long and slender, and covered with yellowish scales. 

 As this fern generally grows in company with many of 

 its kind, the creeping rootstocks become interlaced, and 

 form a dense matted tangle. The leafstalk is also long 

 and slender, and splits into three branches, hence the 

 Oak Fern is sometimes called the Three-branched Poly- 

 pody. This branching of the leafstalk is an easy guide 

 to the identification of the Oak Fern. The strange 

 appearance of the unrolling fronds is always commented 

 on in all books on ferns. At a certain stage of growth 

 the triple fronds, before unrolling, resemble " three 

 little balls on wires." The leafy frond, which is quite 

 smooth and of a most beautiful tender green, consists of 

 three segments. All the segments are similarly divided, 

 being pinnate at the base, but only pinnatifid at the 

 top. The pinnae of each segment are again deeply 

 pinnatifid. The round, globular sori, without indusia, 

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