English: Autumn fern; Japanese shield fern.
Name: erythrosora, from Greek, meaning red heap.
Clades: Dryopteriodeae;
Dryopteridaceae;
Polypodiales;
Polypodiidae;
Plants.
Region: east Asia, Chinam Japan, Philippines.
Habitat: light woodland shade on low mountains or hills; tolerates a drier soil than many ferns; most successful in moist, humus-rich soil; prefers morning or late afternoon sunshine; hardy zones 5 to 11.
Use: ornamental, for its color change in the foliage.
BotanyFern; semi-evergreen.
Stem: upright to down-lying rhizome; thick; branched; several crowns.
Leaves: bipinnate; 30 to 70 cm long, 15 to 35 cm broad; 8 to 20 pairs of pinnae; coppery tint when young, dark green when mature; funnel-shaped; top ones leathery, shiny, divided twice, triangular in shape, pointy; leaflets are narrow lanceolate, edges almost completely sown up; stalks about a third as long as the leaf, striated, yellow to red, with linear to lancet-shaped brown scales, containing two large and several small vascular bundles in a cross-sectional drawing.
Sori: red; on the undersides of the pinnules.
Spores: kidney-shaped, become ripe between summer and autumn.