Question

Which plant is described by these clues? It sets no seed and bears no flower: it reproduces by {spore}s, shed from clusters of tiny cases on the undersides of its {frond}s. Those clusters are round rather than drawn out into lines, and each is capped by a small protective flap. They sit out on the face of the frond in rows either side of each segment's midvein, not tucked under a rolled-over leaf edge. That protective flap is attached at its centre and stands over the cluster like a tiny round umbrella, not hooked on at one side like a kidney. Every small leaflet carries a distinct thumb-shaped lobe on its upper side at the base, pointing toward the frond tip, and its teeth end in fine bristles. Its {frond}s are twice to three times divided, 18 to 36 inches (45 to 90 cm) long, arching outward from a single crown into a shuttlecock-shaped clump. The small leaflets narrow to a distinct short stalk at the base rather than sitting flush against the axis they are borne on. The whole frond is soft and limp to the hand with a matt surface, never stiff and prickly nor polished and lacquered. New fiddleheads unroll in spring densely wrapped in overlapping golden to silvery scales, and the {stipe} stays clothed in small dark-tipped scales all season. The epithet joins the Latin for bristle to the Latin for bearing, recording that bristly scaly covering. Centuries of British collecting have produced hundreds of named selections of this one evergreen woodland species, including the finely cut Divisilobum Group and the plume-soft Plumosum Group, and some forms sprout new plantlets along the frond axis.

Accepted Answer

Polystichum setiferum

Name That Plant #070