Athyrium filix-femina var. cyclosorum
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WESTERN LADY FERN
Family: Dryopteridaceae
Pronounced: Pronounced: a-THIH-ree-um FIH-liks FEM-mih-nuh
GROWING GUIDE
Geographic Origin:
Temperate regions of the northern hemisphere.
Plant Group:
Ferns.
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Mature size: Height: 4 feet (2 m). Width: 2-3 feet (60-90 cm).
Leaf attributes: Lance-shaped, 2 sometimes 3 pinnate, light green fronds up to 3 feet long.
Growth habit: Deciduous, sometimes creeping.
Light: Shade to bright shade.
Soil: Moist, fertile, acidic soil.
Rainy Side Notes
Until recently, our western lady fern’s botanical name was Athyrium filix-femina. Now it is showing up as A. filix-femina var. cyclosorum or A. cyclosorum. Since Lady ferns are circumboreal, variations of lady ferns are found in different regions. It makes sense to rename some because of differences between the ferns, but until its official name is straightened out, I am hesitant to call it A. cyclosorum.
Whatever you want to call it, the Lady is a lovely, deciduous fern. Tallest of the athyriums, it can reach Height:s of six feet or higher in the wild. However, in our Pacific Northwest gardens the ferns will probably stay closer to four to five feet tall.
Lady ferns grow well in woodlands, next to streams or ponds; it even grows in swamps and bogs. I remember when I was a teenager, walking carefully through a bog near Marysville, Washington and finding lady ferns growing everywhere, with sphagnum moss at their feet. The prehistoric feel to the place fascinated me, although it was creepy when my foot slipped off a piece of rotted log and poked through the sphagnum moss into water underneath. Still, I remember that bog as nothing like any place I had ever seen before. The lady ferns thrived there. However, Lady ferns adapt too many conditions, except for extremely dry or cold areas of our maritime region.
Local native people once ate the fiddleheads—boiled, baked or raw. They also used the fronds to cover food for drying.
If you would see the lady fern
In all her graceful power,
Go look for her where woodlarks learn
Love-songs in a summer bower.
—Major Robert Calder Campbell
Debra Teachout-Teashon
Photographed in author's garden.
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