Christmas Fern

Christmas Fern

Christmas Fern Polystichum acrostichoides belongs to a large genus of over 200 species. It is called Christmas Fern because its evergreen spiny-toothed leaves, which look a bit like holly, were sometimes used as a Christmas decoration. It grows on the ground in shady places or along stream banks and it is quite a tough plant, surviving very cold winters. The fruitdots are so numerous that they run together when the spores are ripe and the whole underside of a fertile leaflet is brown with the spore mass. [CH] {FG}