Family Osmundaceae

Family Osmundaceae

Osmunder, the Saxon god of war, gave his name to this primitive family of so-called "Flowering Ferns". One genus, Todea, grows in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, and the only other genus, Osmunda, grows mainly in the temperate zones. In Canadian woods, three species of these large and beautiful ferns are quite common. Cinnamon Fern and Interrupted Fern also flourish as attractive garden plants. The Osmundas do not have their spores organized into "fruitdots" and there are no fruitdot covers (indusia) as is the case in the more highly evolved ferns. The spores are green and they develop into little sexual prothalli which are longer and narrower than the heart-shaped gametophytes of most true ferns. [CH] {FG}