Male Fern
All Resolutions
Description:
Male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas), with spores and sporangia.
Vascular plant of the Dryopteridaceae family and ranging throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The leaves (fronds) of Dryopteris filix-mas are 8 inches (20 cm) to 3.3 foot (1 m) long and are rolled up into a crosier at the early stage of their development.
Instead of seeds, reproduction involves spores, which are stored in sporangia, on the underside of the leaf. They appeared before seed plants in the chronology of evolution.
The caption reads in the original French: Fougère mâle