About
Scope. This work treats the common, native ferns of North Carolina. In order to be included in this work, a species must have been listed expressly as common in at least one of the physiographic regions of North Carolina by Weakley (2015).
Arrangement. Species information can be accessed through either the list page (if you already know the genus in which you are interested) or through the identify page. In the latter, instead of providing traditional dichotomous keys, an arrangement is given based on overall similarity in appearance. Thus, you will encounter first a section of species with frond shapes unduplicated in our area (i.e., "Unique frond forms"), followed by sections of groups of species exhibiting progressively more complex, dissected forms, starting from fronds merely pinnatifid to more finely compound. Hopefully, this approach will be a bit more intuitive than a technical identification key and lead to easier learning of species that might be easily confused with one another at first glance (particularly those with pinnate-pinnatifid fronds!)
Morphology. If you are not already familiar with fern morphological terminology, please take a few moments to become familiar with some basic terms. Additional terms are defined or illustrated in the the "Identify" section of the resource and accessible by clicking on any double-underlined text.
Future. We consider this work a "living" resource and thus seek to continue to add images, tweak content, improve key features, etc. over time. Future versions will be identified by sequentially increasing version numbers.
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Suggested citation. Please cite this work as: Krings, A. 2017–present. Common Ferns of North Carolina. Version 1.0. North Carolina State University, Raleigh. [http://herbarium.ncsu.edu/common_ferns/; (date accessed)].
