Tailed diplazium
Diplazium caudatum
Family · Athyriaceae · Harmless
The deep-shade fern whose frond ends in a long tapering point, like a tail, and whose leaflets all carry the same point in miniature.
Oak woods · Streams and ditches · Uplands
Also known asMacaronesian diplazium
How to tell it
Fronds to a metre and a half, twice divided, pale green and soft. Each leaflet, and the whole frond, ends in a long narrowed point, which gives the name and is the mark. The sori are elongated along the veins, some on both sides of the same vein, which separates the genus. Range: the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries and rare patches in the southern Peninsula.
What it is confused with
Lady fern
Athyrium filix-femina
They are in the same family and both soft. Lady fern grows in a circular crown from one point and its frond ends normally; tailed diplazium has a creeping rhizome and a frond ending in a long drawn-out point. Neither is dangerous.
Open sheet →What it is for
None. It is a relic of Tertiary laurisilva and is protected. The mainland populations, in the Algarve and Andalusia, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
The law says
A species protected under the Habitats Directive. Do not collect or cut it.