An evergreen fern whose once-divided fronds look like ladders, growing from mossy oak boughs as well as from soil
Common polypody — it often lives as an epiphyte in the damp west.
Nature · Ferns, grasses & other plants
Common polypody
Native · evergreen fern to about 30 cm · rocks, walls, banks and mossy trees
Polypodium vulgare — Polypodiaceae
Common polypody is the leathery, evergreen fern that carpets mossy walls, rock ledges and the limbs of old trees, especially in the wetter west of Britain. Its undivided, finger-like leaflets run up the frond like the rungs of a ladder, and its spore clusters show as bright dots beneath. It is one of only a handful of British ferns that keep their fronds all winter, and in humid woodland it grows as an epiphyte on branches rather than in soil.
How to spot them
- ▸Once-cut frond: simple, tongue-shaped leaflets along a central rib, giving a ladder-like outline
- ▸Round, naked spore clusters on the underside, yellow to orange, with no protective flap
- ▸Fronds arise singly from a creeping, scaly rhizome that runs over rock, wall tops or tree bark
- ▸Evergreen, leathery, mid-green fronds up to about 30 cm
- ▸Look-alike: southern polypody has a more triangular frond with longer lowest leaflets; the Wildlife Trusts note three similar polypody species, and separating them needs a hand lens
How to know it
Round orange-yellow spore clusters, each without a covering flap, dot the underside of the frond
Common polypody — a 'naked' sorus.
Its Greek-derived genus name means 'many feet', a reference to the branching creeping rhizome
Common polypody — Polypodium, 'many feet'.
A creeping, scaly rhizome runs across dry-stone walls and rock faces, sending up single leathery fronds
Common polypody.
This fern is green through the depths of winter, while lady fern and royal fern have died to the ground
Common polypody — one of the few British ferns that is winter-green.
Quick-fire facts
- •Native and common throughout Britain, most abundant in the wetter west and on lime-free rocks
- •In humid western woodland it often grows as an epiphyte, rooted in moss on tree trunks and branches
- •The generic name Polypodium is usually explained as 'many feet', from the branching rhizome
- •It is a fern: no flowers, no seeds, and it reproduces by spores from the orange sori on the frond underside
- •The Wildlife Trusts list it as common and visible all year, because the fronds are evergreen
- •Three closely similar polypodies grow in Britain; the common polypody is the most widespread
- •Belongs to Polypodiaceae, a different family from bracken, male fern, lady fern and hart's-tongue
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Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Common polypody