Dryopteris celsa
Dryopteris celsa (W. Palmer) Knowlton, W. Palmer & Pollard
(Latin: celsus, raised, held high, elevated, apparently in reference to this species sometimes growing upon logs and stumps)
Local names: log fern
Rhizomes shortcreeping; leaves monomorphic, ± evergreen; petioles 1⁄3 length of total leaf, scaly at least at base, the scales brown or tan with dark central stripe; leaf blades 1-pinnate-pinnatifid to 2-pinnate-pinnatifid at base, ovatelanceolate, 35–80 cm long, herbaceous; fertile pinnae in distal 1⁄2 of leaf blade to nearly the entire blade; segments of fertile pinnae nearly the same width as those of typical sterile pinnae, not more widely spaced; sori midway between midvein and margin of ultimate leaf segments; 2n = 164 (Montgomery & Wagner 1993). Rotting logs, stumps, and piles of humus in swamps or seeps, acidic soils; included based on a 1925 Palmer collection (29404, MO [annotated by R. Cranfill in 1981 & J. Peck in 1985], GH—Peck & Peck 1988, annotated G. Diggs 2012) from Bowie Co. (cited in Correll 1956 and Correll & Johnston 1970 as D. cristata) in the extreme ne corner of e TX and also on the range map in Werth et al. (1988) showing ne TX; e U.S. from PA s to SC w to AR, MO, n LA, and ne TX (the TX location is slightly disjunct from the Ouachita Mts. in AR to the n), also disjunct populations in MI and NY.