Saturday, May 7, 2011

Lady fern fiddleheads


More fiddleheads from the bluff in Grant County, WI. The last post focused on the ubiquitous Interrupted fern, while today's highlights another fern that was abundant at this site: Lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina). Athyrium can be very diverse, even among plants in a single location, as these photos demonstrate. Some of these plants had green stipes, while others were brown to purplish, and they had a variety of different scales and hairs. This species is easy to identify at this stage because of this variation, rather than in spite of it.

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