Winter Ferns 2025-2026

Common or Rock Polypody

This is a tough winter for photos of ferns! With all the snow we have had, most are buried out of sight. I was going to do some articles on club mosses, but they disappeared under the snow before many of the ferns. We were able to see these Common or Rock Polypodies (Polypodium virginianum) at Highland Park yesterday. One of the six fern species we were able to find portions of despite the snow. Rather than give you a photo showing the Common or Rock Polypody nicely opened so you can see the shape of the fronds, I thought I would use a photo that shows how it actually looks now during the cold winter.

The only ferns that look somewhat similar to them in winter are the Appalachian Polypody (Polypodium appalachianum) or Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides). The Common or Rock Polypody is much more common than Appalachian around here, so most of the time that is what you are seeing it, or a hybrid between Common and Appalachian Polypody. More on that in another article. The other possibility from a distance might be Christmas Fern, but there are clear differences. First, the sori are on the back of the pinnae on polypodies, while the fertile pinnae are at the top of the frond with Christmas. Both are green, leathery and overwinter. The other way to tell from a distance that this is Common Polypody and not Christmas is that the polypodies curl inward with the cold, showing the backside of the pinnae where the sori are, as in the above photo. They sort of hug themselves. Christmas ferns curl backwards, so you see the front of their pinnae. I did an article on these two ferns a year ago. If you look back through these news articles to "Winter Ferns 2024-2025" you will find one on Rock Polypody vs Christmas Fern.

Randy reminds me we are only about a month away from when we usually see the first fiddleheads emerging, but I wonder if it will be later this year. Hang in there!

Posted: to PV Fern News on Fri, Feb 6, 2026
Updated: Fri, Feb 6, 2026