Sensitive Fern

Onoclea sinsibilis

Please keep in mind that it is illegal to uproot a plant without the landowner's consent and care should be taken at all times not to damage wild plants. Wild plants should never be picked for pleasure and some plants are protected by law.
For more information please download the BSBI Code of Conduct PDF document.

Plant Data

Order:

Polypodiales

Family:

Oncleaceae (Onocleoids)

Type:

Fern

Life Cycle:

Perennial

Maximum Size:

120 centimetres tall

Habitats:

Bogs, farmland, marshes, meadows, riverbanks, swamps, waterside, wetland, woodland.

Flower:

Flowers are absent on ferns. Instead, they reproduce using spores via a process called 'sporification'.

Fruit:

Spores exist on the erect, fertile stalks and are enclosed inside bead-like coverings.

Leaves:

A deciduous fern. Large, deeply pinnate. Each leaflet of the frond is untoothed and lanceolate to oblong. The fronds are sometimes called 'fiddleheads'.

Other Names:

Bead Fern.

Frequency (UK):

Unusual

Distribution Map

Reproduced by kind permission of the BSBI.

Click to open an Interactive Map