Osmunda spicant L.
Lonchitis-aspera spicant (L.) Hill. ex Farw.

Deer fern

Rhizome slender, short-creeping or ascending. Fronds dimorphic, tufted, erect or spreading, fertile fronds more erect and longer than sterile ones. Stipe reddish brown to purple-black, coarsely scaly proximally, fertile stipe (15-60 cm), longer than sterile one (2-30 cm). Fertile lamina erect, narrowly rhombic in outline, pinnate, without conform terminal pinna, 25-65 × 3-15 cm, glabrous; pinnae sessile, base prolonged down the rhachis, larger pinnae slightly curved, linear, 25-32 × 1.5-2 mm, margins entire, costae with indument of a few small scales abaxially, often concealed by sori. Sterile lamina spreading, narrowly oblanceolate to linear-lanceolate in outline, pinnatifid to apex and so without conform terminal pinna, 20-75 × 3-14 cm, tapering at base, glabrous; pinnae closely spaced, base fully adnate, larger pinnae curved, linear to oblong-linear or barely wider beyond middle, 15-35 × 3.5-5 mm, margins entire. Rhachises of fertile and sterile lamina with filiform, spreading scales abaxially.

Wet ravines, edges of streams.

Africa, native to Europe and North America.

Algeria, Morocco and Western Sahara, Tunesia.

Terrestrial.