Hart's-tongue Fern
Asplenium scolopendrium
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The only common fern here with undivided strap-shaped fronds — no lacework at all.
An evergreen fern quite unlike the others, with glossy, bright green, undivided strap-shaped fronds with heart-shaped bases and wavy margins, growing in a shuttlecock rosette. Hart's-tongue grows in damp shaded places — walls, banks, wells, woodland and shady lanes — around Dumfries, and favours lime-rich mortar and rock.
Behaviour
The undersides carry the spores in long parallel brown stripes running out at an angle from the midrib like the rungs of a ladder — the scolopendrium of its name likens them to a centipede's legs. Being evergreen, it is one of the few green things in a shaded lane in January. It colonises old mortared walls and drain shafts readily and can grow in deep shade.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Spleenworts (Aspleniaceae)
- Frond
- 20–60 cm, undivided and strap-shaped
- Status
- Native; common on shaded lime-rich walls and banks
Photo by No machine-readable author provided, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons