Onocleaceae

Medium to tall ferns with firm green deciduous sterile leaves and stiff shorter fertile leaves that persist over the winter and sometimes for several years, and consist mainly of spore-producing structures (sori) within or at the margins of round tightly-inrolled bead-like, berry-like or pod-like leaflets that are initially greenish but become brown or blackish at maturity; Ostrich Fern and Sensitive Fern.

Leaves once- to twice-divided, and coarsely to finely lobed, narrowed to or widest at the base, solitary, scattered, in rows or in vase-shaped clumps, arising from stout to slender, widely creeping and forking underground stems (rhizomes). Veins free on the fertile leaves, free or netted on the sterile ones. Leaf stalks scaly at the base. Fertile leaves appear later than sterile ones, usually in the summer or fall, are linear to crescent-shaped in cross section, and resemble a large feather, rows of rattlesnake rattles or segmented worms.

Like wetlands.