Brake Family :

Maiden-hair Family
Pteridaceae (ter-id-AY-see-ee)

Iconic Features

Description (Jepson)

Ferns (Polypodiopsida)
- An early group of vascular plants that produce spores (reproductive cells)
  - Produce no flowers or seeds
  - Fossil records date back almost 400 million years, versus 130 million years for flowering plants
Perennial herbs
- Grow from creeping or erect rhizomes (horizontal underground stems)
Fronds (leaves)
- Almost always compound (divided into leaflets), with 1-6 levels of division (1-6 pinnate)
- Young fronds uncurl from tight spirals called fiddleheads
- Stalks (petioles) generally dark and wiry
Sori
- Sori (singular: sorus) are clusters of spore-producing, sac-like structures called sporangia (singular: sporangium)
  - Sporangia sacs split open to catapult mature, microscopic spores, which are wind dispersed
- Located usually in the curled-under margins of leaflets, sometimes along veins
- Have no indusium (plural: indusia), a tissue flap sometimes covering immature sori

Notes

Approximately 500 species worldwide
- Includes maiden-hair, brake, and lace ferns
Scientific name from the included genus Pteris, from the Greek for “fern”
Common name from the Scandinavian for “bracken,” a coarse fern
Represented by 3 species at Edgewood
Edgewood has 7 fern species in 4 plant families
- Brake family (Pteridaceae)
  - California maidenhair fern (Adiantum jordanii)
  - Coffee fern (Pellaea andromedifolia)
  - Goldback fern (Pentagramma triangularis)
- Polypody family (Polypodiaceae)
  - California polypody (Polypodium californicum)
- Wood fern family (Dryopteridaceae)
  - Coastal wood fern (Dryopteris arguta)
  - Western sword fern (Polystichum munitum)
- Horsetail family (Equisetaceae)
  - Giant horsetail (Equisetum telmateia ssp. braunii)

Specific References

American Fern Society. About Ferns.

U.S. Forest Service. What are ferns? Forest Service. United States Department of Agriculture.

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