The whole fern has a soft texture with attractively drooping fronds that makes a wonderful lace-like accent in the garden. The twice divided pinnae have distinctly stalked linear-lanceolate pinnules with soft bristly tips on the margins. Newly emerging growth is particularly attractive, as the unfurling croziers tend to arch down at the apex under their own weight, yielding a silohuette reminiscent of the “f scroll” on the neck of violins, violas and cellos. The unfurling tips are covered with a fine, downy, silvery-white layer of hairs that almost looks like fuzzy little buttons adorning the edges of the frond. Since this is a variable species in the wild our sporlings exhibit this same degree of variation in the size and shape of the pinnules (leaflets) as well as their spacing to one another, meaning the texture and overall look of these ferns can vary quite widely within the species. Although many cultivars and hybrids derived from this fern are proliferous and may produce bulbils (baby ferns) on the tip, base or center of the rachis, the original parent species P. setiferum does not. Found in the woodlands of Western Europe, these ferns are excellent performers in many temperate garden settings, tolerating everything from Moist Part Sun to Dry Full Shade.

Judith’s notes on nomenclature, synonyms, and other names this fern may be sold as:

I have noticed some nurseries offering a soft shield variety dubbed "angulare", however, this is redundant as that is an earlier specific epithet for setiferum and there has never been a variety of that name. Most likely the variety being sold as "angulare" is some sort of a divisilobe or P. setiferum cultivar and not P. setiferum. The common name so often mis-applied to this fern by unsuspecting growers is "Alaska fern", which is not a very appropriate name as P. setiferum is not well-adapted to the cold sub-arctic climate! There is a hybrid of P. braunii and P. munitum that occurs in Alaska called P. setigerum which this might be confused with (only by name, not appearance!) by those who do poor research or perhaps some lazy grower just felt that making up a name when in doubt would work for the unsuspecting customer. I have even seen forms of the soft shield fern referred to as "Icelandic fern." I have also seen this fern sold labeled as the hybrid Polystichum x dycei by some liner growers, which is very unfortunate and quite confusing, since P. x dycei is a distinctly different fern that makes is proliferous and makes bulbils on its rachis and has much glossier foliage than P. setiferum.

Frond Condition: Evergreen

Mature Size: 3-4'

Origin: Europe

Cultivation requirements: Some Shade, Full Shade, Partly Shaded, Evenly Moist, Slightly Moist

USDA Zones: 6, 7, 8