Look closerPlants
Christmas fern: the fern that stays green all winter
When: December to March
Christmas fern keeps its dark green fronds through winter, when most other plants on the forest floor have gone brown or bare. Look for the small thumb-like lobe on each leaflet that gives it its stocking shape.
Why this time of year
With the leaves down and the woods gray and brown, Christmas fern is one of the few green plants left on the forest floor, its fronds often pressed toward the ground after hard frosts and snow.
How to notice it
- Walk a shady wooded slope and scan the ground for clumps of glossy dark green, feather-shaped fronds.
- Notice whether the fronds have flopped over to lie low and spread outward from the center of the clump instead of standing up; after hard frosts they usually do.
- Pick out one leaflet (do not pull it off) and find the small bump or ear at its base, where it joins the stalk.
- Look around the clump and compare it with any other plants nearby: what is still green and what has turned brown?
Try this with kids: Can you find the tiny stocking on a leaflet? Where is its toe?
Sources
- northernwoodlands.orgNorthern Woodlands (New England nonprofit): Christmas fern is 'one of the few green plants on the forest floor this time of year'; first hard frosts form a hinge at the stem base so fronds fall over; leaflets resemble Christmas stockings.
- extension.umd.eduUniversity of Maryland Extension: 'Heavy snow will flatten fronds, but they remain evergreen.' Grows in woodlands, stream banks and shady slopes.
- northernwoodlands.orgNorthern Woodlands, 2019-12-02: names four common New England evergreen ferns (rock polypody, Christmas fern, marginal wood fern, intermediate wood fern); Christmas fern has a 'bump' or 'ear' at the base of each leaflet that 'many say looks like a miniature Christmas stocking'.
Checked against these sources on September 29, 2026.
In the guide for December, January, February, March