Etymology
In Greek mythology the Oreades were the nymphs of the mountains. This is the male fern of the mountains.
Description
Rhizome: erect, branching; shuttlecock-like clusters eventually making large clusters.
Frond: 70 cm high by 15 cm wide, deciduous, but persisting, monomorphic, blade/stipe ratio: 3:1.
Stipe: grooved, scales moderately dense at the base, lanceolate, tannish, thinning out upwards, vascular bundles: 3-7 in a c-shaped pattern.
Blade: 2-pinnate at the base, less upwards, ovate-lanceolate, stiff, dull surface, linear to ovate scales below, absent above.
Pinnae: 12 to 30 pair, opposite to alternate; pinnules with blunt teeth at the apex, often curling upward from the plane of the blade; costae grooved above, continuous from rachis to costae; margins crenately lobed, curling upwards; veins free, forked.
Sori: round, in 1 row between midrib and margin, confined to the distal one-third of the blade, indusium: reniform, thick, green young, tawny-gray-brown later, at a sinus, sporangia: brownish, maturity: midsummer to early fall.
Dimensionality: lower pinnae curve forward and down, out of the plane of the blade.
Culture
Habitat: talus slopes.
Distribution: Iceland, Norway, south to Portugal, Spain, east to the Caucasus, Pakistan.
Hardy to -30°C, USDA Zone 4.
Distinctive Characteristics
similar to D. filix-mas, but narrower blade, a smaller plant,
and the combination of the curled pinnule margins and the lower pinnae
bending forward and down gives a characteristic crisped appearance
(from C.N. Page, "Ferns of Britain and Ireland", 1997.
Synonyms
Lastrea propinqua Wollaston ex Lowe
Dryopteris abbreviata (DC.) Newman misapplied
Dryopteris filix-mas ssp. oreades (Fomin) O.Bolos & Vigo
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Dryopteris oreades.
Illustration from The Cultivated Species of the Fern Genus Dryopteris in the United States, Barbara Joe Hoshizaki and Kenneth A. Wilson, American Fern Journal, 89, 1, (1999), with permission.
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