English: Western oakfern; Common oak fern; Oak fern; Northern oak fern.
Name: Latin gymnocarpium means: with naked fruit.
Clades:
Cystopteridaceae.
Region: widespread, North America, Eurasia, Canada, the United States, Greenland, China, Japan, Korea, Russia, Europe.
Habitat: coniferous woodlands and on shale talus slopes; forest understory plant.
Content: fluoroglycid; aspidinol, filixic acid, filicinic acid, butyric acid, flavaspidic acid; tannins.
BotanyFern; deciduous; terrestrial.
Root: rhizome growing at or below the ground.
Leaves: small; delicate; 7 to 20 cm, up to 40 cm long; twice compound, ternately compound pinnae; occur singly; stipe with scales and hairs; veins go all the way to the edge of the leaf blade.
Sori: naked; circular or kidney-shaped; on the underside of matured pinnae.