Ferns of the woodland floor
matteuccia
say ma-TEW-see-uh
Matteuccia struthiopteris
The ostrich fern. A commemorative name with two doubled consonants and a diphthong, which is three separate opportunities to write it down wrong.
What it is
The plant
Matteuccia struthiopteris throws its sterile fronds up in a tall narrow vase, wide at the top and pinched at the base, and spreads underground to make colonies along riverbanks and in damp woodland. Its fertile fronds are quite different: short, stiff, dark brown, and left standing through the winter. The species name is Greek for ostrich fern, after the plume shape of the green fronds.
Why
Why the letters and the sound disagree
The name honours Carlo Matteucci, the Italian physicist, and it is his surname with a Latin -a on the end. That is where the doubled letters come from: Matteucci already has two t's and two c's, and the fern keeps both pairs. English gardeners say the word several ways and none of them helps with the spelling, because the sounds belong to Italian and the letters belong to a man.
Recorded
Spellings people arrive at
- mattyoocciaa Latin vowel pairThat sound is written eu.
- mattucciaa Latin vowel pairThere is an e before the u: matteuccia.
- mattyucciatwo changes at onceNo y at all.
- mateucciaone sound, two lettersTwo.
- matteucceaan unstressed vowel-cia.
- matteecciaan unstressed vowelThe u is missing. Search for matteuccia.
- mattyoucciaa Latin vowel pairmatteuccia.
- matteuciaone sound, two lettersTwo c's, for the same reason there are two t's.
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