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Dryopteris cristata - (image 1 of 4)

Taxonomy

Family: Dryopteridaceae

Habitat

Marshes, swamps and wet woods.

Associates

Distribution

Newfoundland to Saskachuan and British Columbia, south to NC, TN, IA, NE, and ID. Also found in Europe.

Morphology

Deciduous from short, creeping rhizomes. Leaves dimorphic, the deciduous fertile fronds larger and more erect than the evergreen sterile ones; petiole and rachis eglandular; blade 35-80 cm long, narrowly lanceolate or with parallel sides, pinnate-pinnatifid; lowest pinnae reduced, broadly triangular, to about twice as long as wide; fertile pinnae twisted out of plane of blade and perpendicular to it; ultimate segments spinulose-toothed (spine-tipped); sori not marginal, midway between the midvein and the margins of the ultimate segments; indusia usually eglandular.

Notes

Sori produced June to December

Wetland indicator: OBL

Thought to be an allotetraploid derived from D. ludoviciana and a hypothetical extinct species D. semicristata.

References

Gleason, Henry A. and A. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Second Ed.
The New York Botanical Garden. Bronx, NY

Montgomery, J.D. and Wagner, W.H. Jr. 1993. Dryopteris. In: Flora of North America North of
Mexico, Vol. 2. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford.

USDA, NRCS. 2002. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.5 (http://plants.usda.gov).

National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

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