Broad Beech Fern
''Phegopteris hexagonoptera'', commonly called the broad beech fern, is a common forest fern in the eastern United States and adjacent Ontario. It grows from a creeping rootstock, sending up individual fronds that more or less clump. Its native habitat includes moist, undisturbed, hardwood forests. The fronds are broadly triangular. The specific name ''hexagonoptera'' refers to the winging of leaf tissue along the rachis between the basal pinnae. Sori are small, round and naked. This aspect of the plant has caused it in the past to be placed, at first, in the genus ''Polypodium'', then grouped with genus ''Dryopteris'', then with the genus ''Thelypteris''. Genetic analysis has shown the genus ''Phegopteris'' to be a sister clade to the rest of the thelypteroid ferns. Rare hybrids with ''Phegopteris connectilis ''Phegopteris connectilis'', commonly known as long beech fern, northern beech fern, and narrow beech fern, is a species of fern native to forests of the Northern Hem ...
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