These hardy ferns keep their bright green fronds all winter - and that can be a welcome sight in an otherwise drab, grey landscape.
This is Scott Fitzpatrick from New Hampshire Audubon, bringing you Something Wild.
During the dead of winter, when much of the landscape is grey and white, a bright green fern frond is welcome sight. After all, most of the plants, including most of the ferns, withered away with the first hard freeze in autumn.
So why are there evergreen ferns? Well, as with most things in nature, it comes down to the competitive edge. Unlike the species that lose their leaves in the fall, evergreen ferns can continue to photosynthesize later in the season. And staying green over the winter gives them a head start in the spring, so they can take advantage of the sun's energy before the trees leaf out.
So why don't they get damaged by frost, even as less hardy plants are turned to mush? As winter approaches, deciduous plants send sugar from their leaves to their roots for safe storage. But evergreen plants do the reverse. They send sugar up into their leaves, where it acts as an effective antifreeze.
We have several species of evergreen ferns in New Hampshire. The Christmas fern is the largest, and looks like the familiar Boston fern house plant. Its dark green fronds tend to lie flat on the ground under the snow, which provides protective insulation from the cold.
The common polypody fern can be found growing in carpet-sized colonies on top of large rocks. This habit provides its other name, rock cap fern. It is the hardiest of our evergreen ferns, and always has bright, green, erect fronds.
And we have several species of wood ferns. These are more delicate in appearance than the other evergreen ferns, and have finely cut, lacy leaves. In winter, at the base of these plants, you can find next year's leaves, curled into tight little fists, just waiting for the chance to unfurl come spring.
For Something Wild, I'm Scott Fitzpatrick.
Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, New Hampshire Public Radio and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.
