Osmundastrum cinnamomeum (L.) C. Presl

Cinnamon Fern

Herb

Perennial

Vascular

Cinnamon Fern is a native deciduous herbaceous perennial in the Royal Fern family (Osmundaceae). It can be found throughout Alabama. Cinnamon Fern occurs in low woods, along streams and ponds, in bogs, in seeps, and on wet roadsides. It is a perennial from a stout erect rhizome surrounded by old leaf bases and masses of fibrous black roots. The fronds (leaves) are dimorphic and form a clump. The vegetative leaves are petiolate, oblong to lanceolate in outline, pinnate to pinnatifid, brown wooly when young and glabrate with age. The pinnae are lanceolate in outline, divided almost to the midvein, with persistent tuffs of hairs on the lower surface. Fertile leaves are narrower than sterile ones, with no green blade tissue. Fertile leaves are densely reddish-brown pubescent with clustered pear-shaped sporangia. The fertile leaves are produced early in the spring and soon wither as the spores are released. Cinnamon Fern is a large, stately fern often used in landscaping. It prefers full to partial shade and a moist to wet soil rich in organic matter. The mass of black roots surrounding the rhizome are collected and sold as “Osmunda fiber” for potting orchids and other epiphytes.--A. Diamond

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Native FACW (NWPL)

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