Royal Fern

4–6 feet of architectural, non-fern-looking fern with fall color and rusty spore tips. it earns its space the moment it matures.

Royal Fern is a fern that demands a double-take. It doesn't look like a fern: the large, compound fronds with widely spaced, oval leaflets look more like a tropical locust or a small flowering tree than any familiar fern. In wet, partly shaded sites it grows to 4–6 feet, creating an architectural presence that reads as a small shrub from a distance. In fall, the entire plant turns warm shades of yellow and orange before going dormant, a fall color display that no other fern offers. At the tips of fertile fronds, the pinnae are replaced by tightly packed, rusty-brown spore clusters that look like a miniature flower or seed head, a botanical curiosity visible from several feet away. These fertile tips persist into early summer as striking, cinnamon-brown structures above the green vegetative fronds. Site it in the wettest, shadiest corner of your garden: along a rain garden margin, beside a water feature, or in a low spot that stays reliably moist. Give it room; a mature clump can reach 5 feet across and becomes one of the most impressive single-plant features in a moist woodland garden.