Male Fern

Male fern is a common fern of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, native to much of Europe, Asia and North America. It grows in damp shade beneath woodland trees and in shady spots on hedge-banks, rocks and screes, though near the northern edge of its range it prefers sunny, well-drained sites. Its upright, semi-evergreen fronds, twice divided into many pairs of leaflets, reach about one and a half metres and rise from a single crown on each rootstock; their stalks are clothed in orange-brown scales, and rows of spore cases form on the underside of mature fronds, opening to release spores between late summer and autumn. The epithet filix-mas means male fern: its robust growth once led people to take it for the male of the more delicate lady fern. Its rhizome has been made into medicines against tapeworms, and a pharmaceutical factory at Nurmijärvi in Finland produced such medicines from it between 1899 and 1964, which is why the fern is that municipality’s emblem plant. Several garden cultivars hold the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit. In magic, Cunningham assigns it to Mercury and the element of air, and says it is carried to draw luck and to attract women.