As a newby, what is the difference between brackens & ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

Colin

On 02/10/2011 14:05, Colin Jackson wrote:
As a newby, what is the difference between brackens& ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

Simplest way is take a picture and post it online. But a rough guide is
that bracken typically has strong vertical stems with fern shaped leaves
right at the top whereas ferns come as single fern shaped leaves from
the ground with characteristic fractal shape. There are plenty of
exceptions but this should be good enough to see if you have bracken or
a common fern growing in your garden. Bracken isn't hard to control in a
domestic setting it is only a problem when there are acres of it.

Regards,
Martin Brown

On 02/10/2011 14:05, Colin Jackson wrote:
As a newby, what is the difference between brackens& ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

Colin


I have always understood that fern are various plants that are common
wild in the UK, though there are of course "cultivated ones. I have
always considered bracken to be the dead dry fern, starting to develop
from the dying fern fronds around now.

--
Residing on low ground in North Staffordshire

"Colin Jackson" wrote

As a newby, what is the difference between brackens & ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

This is Bracken...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken
If you scroll down you will see it has a stem and the fronds come off that,
with other ferns the fronds come straight out of a central rootball/trunk.
Over the last few years we have had them come up in all sorts of shady
places in our small garden and they always seem to choose the right spot,
this includes some maidenhair ferns which are a nice surprise.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

On Oct 2, 2:05*pm, "Colin Jackson" cojack6ATbtinternetDOTcom wrote:
As a newby, what is the difference between brackens & ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

Colin

Bracken is a sort of fern. It is invasive and very poisonous to people
most animals. Very common on upland areas and deciduous woodland,
The hill farmer's enemy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken

"Bob Hobden" wrote in message
...
"Colin Jackson" wrote

As a newby, what is the difference between brackens & ferns?

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very
similar, marked up as ferns!

This is Bracken...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken
If you scroll down you will see it has a stem and the fronds come off
that, with other ferns the fronds come straight out of a central
rootball/trunk. Over the last few years we have had them come up in all
sorts of shady places in our small garden and they always seem to choose
the right spot, this includes some maidenhair ferns which are a nice
surprise.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK


My father and his pal would gather sackfulls of dead ferns each autumn, then
having taken out the soil from his greenhouse, would bury the dead ferns
then replace the soil.

Bill

In message , Colin Jackson
writes
As a newby, what is the difference between brackens & ferns?

Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is a type of fern, which forms large
colonies, and which is an invasive weed in some areas of Britain. I
expect that it is the commonest and most widely distributed fern in
Britain.

Not all ferns have the typical "fern" leaf (frond). Among British native
species the harts tongue (Asplenium scolopendrium) has ribbon like
leaves and polypody (Polypodium vulgare) lobed leaves.

Of the ferns with the "typical" fronds (i.e. leaves pinnately divided,
and then pinnated lobed or divided at least one more time) perhaps 4
species are widespread and abundant. Of these, bracken is distinguished
by the leaves occurring singly from rhizomes, rather than in spreading
clumps from a common centre, and by the wide gaps between the pinnae
(the first level of subdivisions). It is also more divided that male
fern (Dryopteris filix-mas) and buckler fern (Dryopteris dilatata), and
has differently located sori (spore-bearing structures) to these and to
lady fern (Athyrium filix-femina) - in bracken they lie on the edge of
the pinnules (the smallest subdivisions of the frond), while in the
other species they lie within the pinnules.

As a matter of interest, a neighbour said what I had in the garden was
bracken - an invasive weed.
Now the boss is looking , in a nursery, for pots of something very similar,
marked up as ferns!

At a guess, he's looking at species of Dryopteris and Athyrium.

Colin

--
Stewart Robert Hinsley

Bracken is a species of fern.

Ferns native to the UK normally have one of two growth forms - they either grow in neat clumps, or they spread from underground stolons. Bracken is one of the spreading ones (the other spreading ones, like Marsh Fern, are much smaller and less invasive), which is why it's such a nuisance in the garden.

Just to complicate things, some people call all ferns "bracken".