PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Blechnum / Deer Fern
Wikimedia Commons — CC, credited & licensed per image
Blechnaceae family

Deer Fern Blechnum spicant

Native
Also known as: hard fern

Deer Fern is a perennial fern native to Alaska, Canada, and the lower 48 states. It grows to 3.5 ft in full sun – part shade.

More about this plant

Struthiopteris spicant, syn. Blechnum spicant, is a species of fern in the family Blechnaceae. It is known by the common names hard-fern or deer fern. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
USDA PLANTS — Sun · Soil & moisture
USDA — SoilPH — Soil pH
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Fertility Requirement / Soil Adaptation — Fertility need · Adapts to
USDA — Temp-Min °F — Hardiness
Sun
Full sun – part shade
Soil & moisture
High moisture
Soil pH
5.5–7
Fertility need
High
Adapts to
Medium (loam)
Hardiness
USDA zone 7+
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Height, Mature — Height
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Planting Density (per acre) — Spacing
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Growth Rate / Spread / Growth Form / Lifespan / Active Growth Period / Seed Period — Spread · Growth rate · Growth form · Active growth
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) · USDA PLANTS — Foliage
Height
3.5 ft
Spacing
5–6 ft apart from USDA planting density
Spread
Moderate
Growth rate
Moderate
Growth form
Rhizomatous
Lifespan
Perennial · long-lived
Foliage
Broadleaf · medium texture
Active growth
Spring & summer
In the garden
Sources · In the garden
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Propagation Method / Commercial Availability — Propagate by · In the trade
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Germination (cold stratification) — Seed starting
USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — Foliage Texture / Browse Palatability / Resprout — Resprouts if cut
Propagate by
Container, Sprigs
Seed starting
No stratification needed
In the trade
Contract growing only
Resprouts if cut
No
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
When to sow · for your area

Sow timing keys off your local last- and first-frost dates.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host

Recorded feeding on Blechnum in North America, including:

Callopistria floridensis · Florida Fern Moth
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Wildlife & visitors 53 birds

Open records of who else uses Deer Fern — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (29) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[17] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[18] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[20] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[21] Ecological value — GloBI
[23] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[24] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[25] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[28] Other common names — Wikidata (CC0)
[29] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…