Ostrich fern

Description

Matteuccia is a genus of ferns with one species, Matteuccia struthiopteris (common names ostrich fern,fiddlehead fern or shuttlecock fern). The species epithet struthiopteris comes from Ancient Greek words, στρουθίων (strouthíōn) "ostrich" and (pterís) "fern".It is a crown-forming, colony-forming plant, occurring in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere in central and northern Europe,northern Asia,and northern North America.It grows from a completely vertical crown, favoring riverbanks and sandbars, but sends out lateral stolons to form new crowns. It thus can form dense colonies resistant to destruction by floodwaters.