''Matteuccia'' is a

genus Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...

fern A fern (Polypodiopsida or Polypodiophyta ) is a member of a group of vascular plants (plants with xylem and phloem) that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. The polypodiophytes include all living pteridophytes exce ...

s with one species: ''Matteuccia struthiopteris'' ( common names ostrich fern, fiddlehead fern, or shuttlecock fern). The species epithet ''struthiopteris'' comes from Ancient Greek words () "ostrich" and () "fern".

Description

The

frond A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the lar ...

s are dimorphic, with the

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, ...

green sterile fronds being almost vertical, tall and broad, long-tapering to the base but short-tapering to the tip, so that they resemble

ostrich Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...

plumes, hence the name. The fertile fronds are shorter, long, brown when ripe, with highly modified and constricted leaf tissue curled over the

sporangia A sporangium (; from Late Latin, ) is an enclosure in which spores are formed. It can be composed of a single cell or can be multicellular. Virtually all plants, fungi, and many other lineages form sporangia at some point in their life cyc ...

; they develop in autumn, persist erect over the winter and release the spores in early spring. Along with ''

Dryopteris goldieana ''Dryopteris goldieana'', commonly called Goldie's wood fern, or giant wood fern is a fern native to the eastern United States and adjacent areas of Canada, from New Brunswick to Ontario and Georgia. It is the largest native North American speci ...

'', it is one of the largest species of fern in eastern North America.

Classification

''Matteuccia struthiopteris'' is the only species in the genus ''Matteuccia''. Some sources include two Asian species, ''M. orientalis'' and ''M. intermedia'', but molecular data shows that ''M. struthiopteris'' is more closely related to '' Onocleopsis'' and ''

Onoclea ''Onoclea'' is a genus of plants in the family Onocleaceae, native to moist habitats in eastern Asia and eastern North America. They are deciduous ferns with sterile fronds arising from creeping rhizomes In botany and dendrology, a rhizome ...

'' (sensitive fern) than it is to ''M. orientalis'' and ''M. intermedia'', and so the latter should be moved to a genus '' Pentarhizidium'' which contains those two species. Formerly classified as a member of the

Dryopteridaceae The Dryopteridaceae are a family of leptosporangiate ferns in the order Polypodiales. They are known colloquially as the wood ferns. In the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I), the family is placed in the suborder ...

, ''Matteuccia'' has been reassigned to the new much smaller family

Onocleaceae Onocleaceae is a small family of terrestrial ferns in the order Polypodiales. It is placed in the suborder Aspleniineae in the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I). Alternatively, the family, along with Blechnaceae, may be ...

Distribution

It is a crown-forming, colony-forming plant, occurring in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in central and northern Europe, northern Asia, and northern North America. It grows from a completely vertical crown, favoring riverbanks and sandbars, but sends out lateral stolons to form new crowns. It can thus form dense colonies resistant to destruction by floodwaters.

Cultivation and uses

Fiddlehead sprouts as food in Tokyo area march 9 2020

The ostrich fern is a popular

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that ...

in gardens. It has gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nor ...

's Award of Garden Merit. While choosing a place of planting it should be taken into account that this fern is very expansive and its leaves often lose their beauty throughout the summer, especially if not protected from wind and hail. The tightly wound immature fronds, called

fiddleheads Fiddleheads or fiddlehead greens are the furled fronds of a young fern, harvested for use as a vegetable. Left on the plant, each fiddlehead would unroll into a new frond (circinate vernation). As fiddleheads are harvested early in the sea ...

, are also used as a cooked vegetable, and are considered a delicacy mainly in rural areas of northeastern North America. It is considered inadvisable to eat uncooked fiddleheads. Brown "scales" are inedible and should be scraped or rinsed off. The sprouts are also picked all over Japan, ("kogomi" in Japanese) where they are a delicacy. ''Matteuccia'' species are used as food plants by the

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. ...

e of some Lepidoptera species including ''

Sthenopis pretiosus ''Sthenopis pretiosus'', the gold-spotted ghost moth, is a species of moth of the family Hepialidae. It was first described by Gottlieb August Wilhelm Herrich-Schäffer in 1856. It can be found in found Brazil, Venezuela and in the eastern United ...

''.

References

Sources

*Hyde, H. A., Wade, A. E., & Harrison, S. G. (1978). ''Welsh Ferns''. National Museum of Wales. {{Taxonbar, from1=Q1130386, from2=Q304969 Polypodiales Ferns of Asia Ferns of the Americas Ferns of Europe Ferns of the United States Flora of Asia Flora of Europe Flora of North America Leaf vegetables Perennial vegetables Japanese vegetables Garden plants of Asia Garden plants of Europe Garden plants of North America Monotypic fern genera