Participant Info

Species

Gymnocarpium dryopteris [Carpogymnia dryopteris] [Currania dryopteris] [Lastrea dryopteris] etc.

Family

Cystopteridiceae

CommonName

Western oak fern, common oak fern, northern oak fern

Presence

yes

Status

native

EarliestDate

1939

LatestDate

1999

Ecosystem

montane

Geobotanical

SSanjuans, NCristos

Counties

Conejos, Costilla

Passes

WildlifePreserves

Other Localities

PhotoRecords

Comments

NEED IN SITU PHOTOS. Western oak fern has been vouchered only twice from the Watershed: Forest Canyon in "damp shade" (Conejos Co, 1939) and Placer Creek in Forbes Trinchera Ranch (Costilla Co, 1999). Both habitats were riparian and/or shaded woods, understory being common habitat for Gymnocarpum dryopteris. Generally in the USA, the species runs down the Rockies to northern New Mexico, and across the northern third of the nation. World wide, it occupies Canada, Greenland, and Eurasia. It follows the Rio Grande drainage into only Taos and Rio Arriba counties of New Mexico, where it is "very uncommon" (Allred et al. 2020). So the entire drainage is represented by less than ten specimens of G. dryopteris. Note that taxonomists have wrestled with this species, and in the past no less than ten different genres have been proposed for it.

Annotation