Ferns of Georgia

 

There are over 100 ferns native to Georgia and the Southeastern US. Some are big and bold while others are tiny, single-frond plants. Some spread on their own while others clump in a very tidy fashion. Like many native plants, some have evolved to live in special conditions (wet areas, rocky outcrops); quite a few of them are garden suitable and I’ve written about those Georgia ferns before. 

Christmas fern

Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) is one of our most well-known species for dryish shade; it is native to most of the state except for the coast; I profiled it in 2018 and included some landscape usage photos.

Recently I attended a talk about native ferns at our local chapter meeting. The speaker had a copy of a useful reference book that I had not seen before: Ferns of Alabama. Plants don’t follow state lines and there is a huge amount of overlap between the two states so this a good companion to our Georgia reference, Field Guide to the Ferns and Other Pteridophytes of Georgia. 

The books are not new; the Alabama one is 2012 and my copy of the Georgia one is 1986 but they apparently updated in 2003.

Both references have good introductory sections that I encourage folks to read because they give you a better understanding of how these plants grow (physical details of fern growth), how geology and geography affect what ferns grow where, as well as identification details for the different fern families.

The Georgia book has line drawings only but they are quite excellent, often including some important detail of the sori (reproductive structure). The Alabama book has line drawings as well as photographs. The Alabama book requires you to turn the page to see all the photos/text associated with one species, meaning that if the book is open then you might be looking at the description for one species and the photos of the previous one. I find that potentially confusing. The Georgia book shows everything on the same page spread.

Neither book has the latest Scientific names (and that is true for printed materials in a changing world), but the old name is easily cross-referenced using a resource like Flora of the Southeastern US (New York fern, as an example, is now Amauropelta noveboracensis, but you can easily use the old name Thelypteris noveboracensis to find the new name).

If you’re using these as a field guide, each book includes a natural range map by county, indicating where they grow in the wild. Each of them includes a few exotic ferns that have naturalized (although they don’t include one of the more recent naturalized ferns that I profiled in 2022).

I encourage you to get to know the ferns of your particular area and consider using them in your landscape for both beauty and functionality. While the ecosystem usage of these primitive plants is not as obvious as the host plants we use for insects, they serve as attractive and useful plantings, especially in shadier areas.