Etymology Vulgare is the Latin word for common.

Description Rhizome: creeping, branching, whitish waxy, rather thick, with phylopodia, scales lanceolate, base and margins light brown, sometimes with dark central stripe.
Frond: 25 cm high by 7 cm wide, evergreen, new fronds early summer, monomorphic, blade/stipe ratio: 1:1 to 3:1.
Stipe: jointed at base, straw-colored, narrowly triangular, red-brown scales, to 4 mm, these scales are peltate, vascular bundles: 3 at the base, unifying upwards into an open v-shape.
Blade: pinnatifid, lanceolate to linear, parallel sides in the lower half, truncated base, leathery or herbaceous, mid green, dull in shade, rachis sparsely scaly below, glabrous above; scales lanceolate-ovate.
Pinnae: 10 to 20 pair, alternate; margins entire or crenate, rarely serrate; veins free, forking.
Sori: round, discrete, sunken into the lamina, bulging on the top surface, midway between margin and midrib, on the upper half of the blade, indusium: absent, sporangia: early green, later yellow, then rusty brown, maturity: late summer to early fall.
Dimensionality: normally the lowest pinnae pair only slightly bending forward, down; pinnae rolling up into the rachis, above the plane, when desicated or in winter.

Culture Habitat: acidic, well-drained locations, on rocks, logs, hillsides. Distribution: central and northern Europe, less common southern Europe, occurence elsewhere often segrated into other taxa. Hardy to -25°C, USDA Zone 5.

Synonyms
Polypodium auritum Willd.
Polypodium boreale Salisb.
Polypodium commune DC.
Polypodium laciniatum Lam.
Polypodium nipponicum, invalid
Polypodium officinale Güldenst.
Polypodium pinnatifidum Gilib.