Culcita fern
Culcita macrocarpa
Family · Culcitaceae · Harmless
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The largest fern in Portugal and a relic of the age when laurisilva covered Europe. Two-metre fronds rising from a short trunk covered in glossy golden hairs.
Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Uplands
Also known asMacaronesian tree fern
How to tell it
Enormous fronds, one to three metres, divided three or four times, leathery and matt dark green. The stalk base and rhizome are covered in long, silky, honey-coloured hairs, which is the infallible mark. The sori sit on the leaflet margin, inside a pouch that opens like a shell.
What it is confused with
Royal fern
Osmunda regalis
Both are enormous and of damp places. Royal fern has broad rounded leaflets and raises brown spike-like fronds in the centre; culcita has finely divided fronds and golden hairs at the base. Neither is dangerous and both are protected.
Open sheet →What it is for
None. The golden rhizome hairs were used as stuffing for cushions and to staunch bleeding, and that harvesting is one reason the species is protected. It occurs in the Azores, Madeira and in very rare patches of the northwestern Peninsula.
The law says
A priority species of the Habitats Directive, in the strict protection annex. Do not collect, do not cut and do not touch the rhizome hairs.