Common ostrich fern

Family Onocleaceae. In nature it occurs in forests of the European part of Russia, in the Caucasus, in Siberia and in the Far East.

Very popular in cultivation, large, in suitable conditions reaching up to 2 m in height (clump diameter up to 1 m), and in the Moscow region - from 40 to 120 cm, hardy, with a thick vertical rhizome, a rapidly spreading fern with luxuriant, delicate, light-emerald, broadly lanceolate and pinnately divided fronds gathered into a goblet-shaped cup-funnel. Frond length ranges from 25 to 100 cm, and width from 8 to 20 cm. The stalks are short. From the center of the clump in August there grow dense, leathery, brown, pinnate sporophylls up to 60 cm long and up to 5 cm wide, which are good material for winter bouquets. Spores ripen in the second half of the summer. The fronds die back with the first frosts.