First Fiddleheads!

Fragile Ferns

The Fiddlehead season has finally arrived! Randy & I have been checking our early fiddlehead sites for a few weeks, and we have seen the tiny pre-fiddleheads emerging, but none that really could be what most would call a fiddlehead until a few days ago. In our area we have found the Fragile ferns (Cystopteris tenuis) are the first ferns that produce fiddleheads. But the Woodsias (Blunt-lobe and Rusty) come out at about the same time. We will be checking them again soon, and maybe the next photo will be a Woodsia fiddlehead. As you can see from the penny next to them, you have to look carefully to find them!

These Fragile Ferns (called Upland Brittle Bladder Fern by S. Chadde, Northeast Ferns) usually grow in crevices of rock faces and also in the non-mortared stone walls of railroad underpasses. They come up early, but also dry out earlier than most ferns in the summer. Their dry brown fronds remain hanging down the rock face throughout the winter and help identify them in the Spring. You can see remnants of their old fronds in this photo, with the new green growth popping up from the slightly less exposed opening in the rocks. Their old stipes (lower stem) turn reddish later in the growing season, and you might notice some of the reddish-brown colored old stipes in this photo. Bulblet ferns (Cystopteris bulbifera) may look somewhat similar early in the season as the fiddleheads open into fronds, but they don't develop quite as early and their stipes start out a beautiful red color and turn green later.

Hope you can find some fiddleheads developing in your area soon!

Posted: to PV Fern News on Sun, Mar 29, 2026
Updated: Sun, Mar 29, 2026