Go With the Green

For at least a day or two, I am giving up looking for things in the forest that are not-green. I’ve decided for the moment to go with the greenery around me, so today’s photo reflects that. This fern is a Christmas fern, one of the most common ferns around the woods of Roundtop and throughout the east coast. Christmas ferns are so named because they stay green all winter and were once commonly used in Christmas decorations.

References I have found suggest that the fern was likely named in the Victorian era, when ferns were especially popular. For a while, apparently, the ferns were so popular as Christmas decorations that they became difficult to find in the wild. Fortunately, that craze has passed, and this fern is common again. It is reported to be often seen with wood ferns of the genus dryopteris, which I can confirm to be true, at least here on Roundtop.