wood fern

Streams meander past wood ferns and mountain laurel.

And if you have shade, you could do worse than plant the showy, upright Dixie wood fern, which Dietrich admires, along with the related autumn fern.

Under an oak grove formerly carpeted with lawn, the gardeners have converted the area to ground-cover plantings of the autumn fern variety Brilliance in a combination with the Dixie wood fern.

This is a natural hybrid of two wood fern species.

By now, the nautilus-shell curls of nascent Dixie wood ferns and cinnamon ferns that I saw will surely be unfurled.