Description
(Brittle Bladder Fern)
A gorgeous and delicate looking species spread right across the northern hemisphere in shady, moist areas with good drainage. The plants make just a small, slender rootstock and the leaves are also quite small. They are feathery and open, reaching 30 cm at most on fully established plants here. Each front is divided and subdivided into lobed segments. This unfurls to make its delicate foliage in the spring and lasts until autumn.
The deciduous habit and slender, delicate-looking, feathery growths make it an ideal companion plant for small, “woodland” species and orchids such as Trillium, Ϲalanthe and Ϲypripedium, and it appreciates similar conditions of good drainage and light humid shade. It thrives here on limestone, in our little woodland as well as on humus-rich, more acidic soils.
Cystopteris fragilis