Species
+

Matteuccia struthiopteris (L.) Tod.

Fiddle Fern, Gaiske banegetta, Ostrich Fern, Ostrich Fern (EN)

Climate known 18 photographs Fern or moss
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Matteuccia is a genus of ferns with one species: Matteuccia struthiopteris. The species epithet struthiopteris comes from Ancient Greek words στρουθίων (strouthíōn) "ostrich" and πτερίς (pterís) "fern".

Text from Wikipedia, “Matteuccia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Matteuccia

Matteuccia is a genus of ferns with one species: Matteuccia struthiopteris. The species epithet struthiopteris comes from Ancient Greek words στρουθίων (strouthíōn) "ostrich" and πτερίς (pterís) "fern".

Text from Wikipedia, “Matteuccia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Onocleaceae
Described by
(L.) Tod.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Norway +51
Wild records
375 in range· 129 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
845mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 88 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a fern or moss by the genus Matteuccia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 845 mm a year, wettest July at 88 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 5 °C (archetype minimum for a fern or moss, above the -16.8 °C habitat night).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Matteuccia nodulosa (Schkuhr) Fernald; Matteuccia struthiopteris subsp. sinuata (Thunb.) Á.Löve & D.Löve; Matteuccia struthiopteris var. acutiloba Ching; Onoclea nodulosa Schkuhr; Onoclea struthiopteris (L.) Hoffm. and 15 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a fern or moss by the genus Matteuccia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (626 mm of 845 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 19.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to June.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: 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 gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 845 mm a year, wettest July at 88 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

845 mm a year at the habitat, 626 mm of it May to December. Wettest month July at 88 mm, driest April at 47 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 638 mm to 1261 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

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

Light Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 1, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

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.

Warmth and air Cold floor 5 °C (archetype minimum for a fern or moss, above the -16.8 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -16.8 °C, the absolute minimum -26.6 °C, about 127 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 27.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -5.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells -11.2 °C to 0.6 °C), warmest day 21.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 5 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is -16.8 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a fern or moss (grouped by the genus Matteuccia, which is reliably one kind of plant) is 5 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 1 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul; mean night from -5 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 845 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 319 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -26.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 27.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°frost27.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-26.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 4–35RH 58–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 319 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C1 / -5–52 / -5–66 / -1–1011 / 7–1416 / 13–1919 / 17–2222 / 20–2521 / 19–2417 / 13–2012 / 7–156 / -0–92 / -4–6
Night °C-5 / -11–1-5 / -11–1-1 / -7–32 / -2–58 / 5–1011 / 9–1314 / 12–1513 / 11–1510 / 6–126 / 1–81 / -5–5-3 / -9–2
Rain mm63 / 32–8849 / 31–6860 / 35–8247 / 33–8565 / 49–11578 / 66–14188 / 72–14687 / 69–13980 / 57–11981 / 46–11878 / 47–10969 / 43–92
DLI5 / 2–1010 / 6–1517 / 14–2327 / 24–3033 / 32–3535 / 33–3734 / 32–3628 / 24–3118 / 15–2311 / 7–166 / 3–104 / 1–7
RH %68 / 62–7266 / 60–6963 / 59–6559 / 57–6158 / 56–6160 / 57–6260 / 58–6361 / 58–6363 / 61–6565 / 62–6868 / 64–7169 / 64–72

Each figure is the median across the 319 grid cells holding the 374 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 615:3942 (59.225, 17.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -26.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -16.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 27.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 319 distinct grid cells holding the 374 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 615:3942 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 59.00_16.875, lapse-corrected +4 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 45 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 every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey, China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker52.015, 8.509 · in the densest population, 166 records (44% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 375 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 129 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 94 km away. 411 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 375 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Matteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopterisMatteuccia struthiopteris

Photographs: viktor, CC BY, via GBIF (4); Michael Perukangas, CC BY-SA, via GBIF (4).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Matteuccia struthiopteris, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Large-scale phylogenomic analysis resolves a backbone phylogeny in ferns
Hui Shen, Dongmei Jin, Jiang‐Ping Shu, Xile Zhou (2017) · GigaScience
Experimental and Analytical Studies of Pteridophytes
C. W. Wardlaw (1946) · Annals of Botany
Plant species diversity and composition of wetlands within an upland forest
Kathryn M. Flinn, Martin J. Lechowicz, Marcia J. Waterway (2008) · American Journal of Botany
Stomatal morphology and physiology explain varied sensitivity to abscisic acid across vascular plant lineages
Lei Gong, Xu-Dong Liu, Yuan‐Yuan Zeng, Xue-Qian Tian (2021) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Molecular systematics and a revised taxonomy of the onocleoid ferns (Dryopteridaceae: Onocleeae)
Gerald J. Gastony, Mark C. Ungerer (1997) · American Journal of Botany
A gene encoding a vicilin‐like protein is specifically expressed in fern spores
Andrei D. Shutov, Holger Braun, Yu. V. Chesnokov, Helmut Bäumlein (1998) · European Journal of Biochemistry
Highly Unsaturated Lipids of Mnium, Polytrichum, Marchantia, and Matteuccia
Joanne L. Gellerman, Wayne H. Anderson, Hermann Schlenk (1972) · The Bryologist
Antioxidant Activities of Ostrich Fern by Different Extraction Methods and Solvents
So Lim Shin, Cheol-Hee Lee (2011) · Journal of Life Science
Auxin Effects on Vascular Differentiation in Ostrich Fern
Ma Yi-Lun, Taylor A. Steeves (1992) · Annals of Botany

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 18 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 8 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.