Indicator Plants

• Evergreen
• Medium-sized fern
• Grows in moist forests from low to high elevations.

• Form: tufted cluster of fronds
• Leaves: 2 kinds of leaves -
  • leathery sterile leaves (20-80 cm), often pressed to ground, purplish-brown stipes (stalk below the blade), leaflets widely spaced and reduced towards top and bottom
  • deciduous fertile leaves grow upright from centre of clump, leaflets much narrower and sometimes rolled around sori
• Sori: continuous and distributed near leaflet margin

•  Polystichum munitum 
  • has leaflets that attach to the leaf axis on short stalks, whereas deer fern attaches along the whole base of leaflet

• important winter food for deer and elk

• often grows under alder

E-Flora of BC - Blechnum spicant

Douglas, G.W. et al (Editors). 1998-2002. Illustrated Flora of British Columbia, Volumes 1 to 8. B.C. Min. Environ., Lands and Parks, and B.C. Min. For., Victoria, B.C.

Pojar, J. and A. MacKinnon. 2014. Plants of Coastal British Columbia Including Washington, Oregon & Alaska. B.C. Ministry of Forestry and Lone Pine Publishing. Vancouver, B.C.