Ferns in Italy: the Apennines

The next stop on our European trip was the Italian Riviera. We spent several days doing fieldwork in Ligura and the Apennines along the northwestern coast of Italy. Our host and guide here was a wonderful friend I met through the American Fern Society's Facebook page. We visited several beautiful, forested sites in the mountains surrounded by marble mines.

Our base was the seaside city of Sestri Levante, the most beautiful city I've ever been to.

Head first in Dryopteris

World War II ordnance

Dryopteris and Asplenium

Hymenophyllum

Dryopteris affinis

Dryopteris affinis 

Polystichum setiferum

Asplenium trichomanes ssp. quadrivalens

Blechnum spicant

Dryopteris borreri

Asplenium ruta-muraria ssp. dolomiticum

Asplenium trichomanes

Asplenium ceterach ssp. bivalens

Dryopteris x mantoniae, named for British cytologist Irene Manton.
Italian pteridologist Dino Marchetti provides some scale!