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Perennial fern of the Dryopteridaceae family, the male fern is one of the most widespread species of the temperate northern hemisphere, found in Europe, Asia, and North America. It colonizes cool and shaded undergrowth, damp banks, edges, and shaded screes, from the plains up to about 2,000 meters in altitude.
It forms large upright clumps in a vase shape, reaching 60 to 120 cm in height. The bipinnate fronds, ranging from medium to dark green, are elegantly arched and borne on a scaly reddish-brown petiole. The pinnules are oblong, finely toothed, and the kidney-shaped sori align in regular rows on the underside of the fertile fronds.
In spring, the appearance of the fiddleheads is one of the most striking spectacles of the undergrowth: entirely coiled upon themselves, densely covered with large tawny papery scales and silvery hairs, they slowly unfurl revealing the still compact and tender green pinnules. The fiddlehead of Dryopteris filix-mas is particularly spectacular due to the size of its scales and the complexity of its coiling.
The male fern has long been used in traditional medicine: its rhizome contains vermifuge substances that made it, before the era of modern antiparasitics, a renowned remedy against tapeworm — a use now abandoned due to its toxicity.
In cultivation, it adapts to most cool to moist soils, rich in humus, in shade or partial shade. Perfectly hardy, it is one of the easiest ferns to establish in a woodland garden or on the edge of a shaded water feature.