Source: Wikipedia
| Broad beech fern | |
|---|---|
| |
| Phegopteris hexagonoptera in spring | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Division: | Polypodiophyta |
| Class: | Polypodiopsida |
| Order: | Polypodiales |
| Suborder: | Aspleniineae |
| Family: | Thelypteridaceae |
| Genus: | Phegopteris |
| Species: | P. hexagonoptera
|
| Binomial name | |
| Phegopteris hexagonoptera | |
| |
| Distribution | |
| Synonyms | |
|
Dryopteris hexagonoptera (Michx.) C. Chr. | |
Phegopteris hexagonoptera, commonly called the broad beech fern, is a common herbacious perennial forest fern native to the eastern United States and adjacent Ontario. [2] [3][4] It grows from a creeping rootstock, sending up individual fronds that more or less clump. Its native habitat includes moist, undisturbed, hardwood forests.[5]
The fronds are broadly triangular. The specific epithet hexagonoptera, Latin for "six-sided wing", refers to the wings of leaf tissue along the rachis between the basal pinnae. [2]
Sori are small, round, and naked.[6] This aspect of the plant has caused it in the past to be placed, at first, in the genus Polypodium, then grouped with genus Dryopteris, then with the genus Thelypteris. Genetic analysis has shown the genus Phegopteris to be a sister clade to the rest of the thelypteroid ferns. [citation needed]
This fern makes an excellent garden plant, gradually filling in a bed. [citation needed]
Taxonomy
[edit]The species was first described in 1803, typified on an illustration by Plukenet, by André Michaux, who named it Polypodium hexagonopterum. His description refers to an oblong-hexagonal membrane connecting opposite pinnae, presumably the source of the specific epithet.[7]
References
[edit]- ^ "NatureServe Explorer 2.0 - Phegopteris hexagonoptera Broad Beechfern". explorer.natureserve.org. Retrieved 9 October 2020.
- ^ a b "Phegopteris hexagonoptera (Broad Beech Fern, Southern Beech Fern)". NC State Extension Plants. North Carolina State University. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
- ^ Tryon, RM (1936). "Ferns of the Dune Region of Indiana". American Midland Naturalist. 17 (2): 425–429. doi:10.2307/2419969. JSTOR 2419969.
- ^ Small, John (1975). Ferns of the vicinity of New York: being descriptions of the fern-plants growing naturally within a hundred miles of Manhattan Island, with notes. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-23118-6.
- ^ "Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - The University of Texas at Austin". www.wildflower.org. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
- ^ "Phegopteris hexagonoptera (broad beech fern)". Minnesota Wildflowers. Minnesota Wildflowers (Information compiled by Stan Tekiela). Retrieved 2025-06-25.
- ^ Michaux, André (1803). Flora boreali-americana (in Latin). Vol. 2. Paris: Charles Crapelet. p. 271.
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