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Dryopteris fragrans; photograph (c) Quinten Wiegersma, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Quinten Wiegersma, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-09-09

Dryopteris fragrans (L.) Schott

Fragrant wood fern; Fragrant fern; Fragrant cliff fern; Fragrant cliff wood fern

Dryopteridaceae · Finland, North European Russia +42 · listed by its genus as a fern or moss

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Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY)Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY)Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY)Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY)Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY)Dryopteris fragrans, photograph (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY) 71 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
-37.3°C
Record low -46.2 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
18°C
Jul at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
726mm
11 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
3–37DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes May to October, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Dryopteris fragrans, commonly known as the fragrant woodfern, a circumboreal fern, is the smallest of the Dryopteris species. It can resemble Woodsia ilvensis in the wild, with which it shares the same habitat of rocky areas, shady cliffs, screes, and limestone talus. It typically will not reach more than 25 cm (9.8 in) in height, and accumulates dead fronds around its base.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Dryopteris fragrans", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Dryopteris

Dryopteris, commonly called the wood ferns, male ferns, or buckler ferns, is a fern genus in the family Dryopteridaceae, subfamily Dryopteridoideae, according to the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I). There are about 300-400 species in the genus. The species are distributed in Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and the Pacific islands, with the highest diversity in eastern Asia. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Dryopteris", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a fern or moss, listed under the genus Dryopteris in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial or lithophyte”.

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (488 mm of 678 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 7.7 °C against a yearly mean of -3.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

Rain

678 mm in the median year at the habitat, 488 mm of it May to October. Wettest month July at 102 mm, driest month February at 24 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 400 mm to 1,152 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 726 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 678 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 3 to 37 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 0, the highest 90th-percentile month 41).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -37.3 °C, the absolute minimum -46.2 °C, 9,963 frost nights in 44 years, 226.4 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.9 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -24.4 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -33.8 °C to -14.9 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 18.4 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -37.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -118 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Group. Listed under the genus Dryopteris in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial or lithophyte”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Dryopteris fragrans through the yearWarmest month July, mean daily high 18 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low -24.4 °C; 678 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-60°-40°-20°0°20°40°frost25.9° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-46.2° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 3–37RH 57–69%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 805 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-17 / -28–-8-14 / -26–-5-7 / -19–01 / -10–89 / -1–1616 / 8–2118 / 14–2316 / 11–2310 / 3–180 / -9–11-10 / -21–3-15 / -27–-4
Night °C-24 / -34–-15-22 / -32–-13-17 / -26–-8-8 / -17–-10 / -7–57 / 2–1210 / 6–158 / 4–162 / -3–11-7 / -16–5-17 / -27–-2-22 / -32–-10
Rain mm28 / 11–7124 / 9–6427 / 11–6436 / 13–7356 / 24–9587 / 44–132102 / 67–17998 / 63–17184 / 43–12961 / 29–11443 / 20–9332 / 15–84
DLI4 / 0–1110 / 3–1721 / 13–2731 / 27–3537 / 34–4137 / 34–4133 / 29–3826 / 19–3318 / 12–2511 / 5–175 / 1–103 / 0–8
RH %68 / 62–8165 / 60–7861 / 56–7158 / 53–6757 / 52–6559 / 54–6460 / 57–6561 / 58–6662 / 58–6763 / 58–7166 / 60–7769 / 62–81
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 805 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (969 records in those cells; 1 more cell holds records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cell is left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 599:1022 (60.025, -128.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -46.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -37.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 805 distinct grid cells holding 969 of the 970 in-range records (1 further cell with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 599:1022 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 60.00_-128.750, lapse-corrected -118 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 664 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeFinland, North European Russia, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Alaska, Greenland, Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Labrador, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker47.378, -91.188 · in the densest population, 239 records (14% of those in range)
Kew's description“perennial or lithophyte” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1716 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 969 of them in the land cells it reads, of 970 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1215 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 37 km away. 57 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 746 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1716 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Dryopteris fragrans, photograph 1did not loadDryopteris fragrans, photograph 2did not loadDryopteris fragrans, photograph 3did not loadDryopteris fragrans, photograph 4did not loadDryopteris fragrans, photograph 5did not loadDryopteris fragrans, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Matt Berger, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Silene repens Silene repens Creeping catchfly Photo: CC BY, Urgamal MagsarSalix arbusculoides Salix arbusculoides Little-tree willow Photo: CC0, author not statedPatrinia sibirica Patrinia sibirica Caprifoliaceae Photo: CC BY, Святослав ВласенкоCotoneaster uniflorus Cotoneaster uniflorus Rosaceae Photo: CC BY, Urgamal MagsarPinus pumila Pinus pumila Dwarf Siberian pine Photo: CC0, author not statedEurybia sibirica Eurybia sibirica Siberian aster Photo: CC BY, Matt Berger

Other Dryopteris 75 in the reference

Dryopteris aemula Dryopteris aemula Hay-scented Buckler-fern Photo: CC BY, Rocco LieghioDryopteris affinis Dryopteris affinis Scaly male fern Photo: CC0, pondbobDryopteris aitoniana Dryopteris aitoniana Madeira Buckler-fern Photo: CC BY, Sam J. Thomas Dryopteris × ambroseae Dryopteridaceae Dryopteris amurensis Dryopteris amurensis Amur wood fern Photo: CC BY, Violetta DzizyurovaDryopteris ardechensis Dryopteris ardechensis Cévennes Male-fern Photo: CC BY-SA, Chérif-Jacques AllaliDryopteris arguta Dryopteris arguta Coastal wood fern Photo: CC BY, Matt Berger Dryopteris assamensis Dryopteridaceae Dryopteris atrata Dryopteris atrata Shaggy shield fern Photo: CC BY, Jacy ChenDryopteris × australis Dryopteris × australis Woodfern Photo: CC BY-SA, lejones417Dryopteris bissetiana Dryopteris bissetiana Mountain buckler fern Photo: CC BY, Yoshihiro TokueDryopteris blanfordii Dryopteris blanfordii Dryopteridaceae Photo: Public domain, Stickpen all 76 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Aspidium fragrans; Dryopteris aquilonaris; Dryopteris fragrans f. aquilonaris; Dryopteris fragrans var. fragrans; Dryopteris fragrans var. hookeriana and 15 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Dryopteridaceae
Described by
(L.) Schott
Native to
Finland, North European Russia, Altay +41
Wild records
1716 in range · 1215 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 60.00_-128.750, lapse-corrected -118 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 101 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…