Ebony Spleenwort

Description:

It is a small fern with pinnate fronds, growing in tufts, with a shiny reddish-brown stipe and rachis (stem and leaf axis). The fronds are dimorphic, with long, erect, dark green fertile fronds, which are deciduous, and shorter, spreading, lighter green sterile fronds, which are evergreen.[1]

Habitat:

In North America, A. platyneuron is native throughout the eastern United States from southern Maine to the southeastern corner of Wisconsin, south to Florida and west to eastern Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and in the far southeast of Canada. It is also found around the meeting point of Colorado, New Mexico, and Oklahoma, and in isolated small populations in New Mexico, Arizona and the West Indies.[24] Outside of North America, A. platyneuron is found in tropical and subtropical southern Africa, a distribution not known for any other North American fern.[3] An isolated population was found on serpentine soil in an oak woodland in Slovakia in 2009.[25] Asplenium platyneuron can be found in a wide variety of habitats. It will tolerate soils ranging from mediacid (pH 3.5–4.0) to subalkaline (pH 8.0–8.5),[26] although it prefers subacid soils (pH 4.5–5.0) over mediacid.[27] It may be found in recent or old disturbed sites in soil and may also be found on rock and masonry. This plant will frequently colonize masonry in urban and rural sites. It prefers calcareous rocks (or mortared joints) but will also grow on subacid rock.

Notes:

Spotted on top of Kennesaw Mountain