Fern Spelling Dictionary

Index

The three groups

Ferns split by the ground they grow on, and then the horsetails and clubmosses, which are not ferns and are grouped with them anyway.

Ferns

Ferns of wall and rock

Small ferns with their roots in a crack. Three genera, all named in Greek, none of them spelled the way it sounds.

asplenium, cheilanthes, woodsia

28 recorded spellings

Ferns

Ferns of the woodland floor

The large ferns of shade and leaf litter, where the name is usually a description of the plant in Greek.

dryopteris, polypodium, matteuccia

26 recorded spellings

Horsetails,

Horsetails, clubmosses and spikemosses

Not ferns. Older than ferns, with the oldest names in the book and the worst spellings.

equisetum, lycopodium, selaginella

22 recorded spellings