Phegopteris hexagonoptera, commonly called the broad beech fern, is a common forest fern

Fern

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta. Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem . They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants...

 in the eastern United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and adjacent Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. It grows from a creeping rootstock, sending up individual fronds that more or less clump.

The fronds are broadly triangular. The specific name hexagonoptera refers to the winging of leaf tissue along the rachis between the basal pinnae.

Sori are small, round and naked. This aspect of the plant has caused it in the past to be placed, at first, in the genus Polypodium

Polypodium

Polypodium is a genus of 75–100 species of true ferns, widely distributed throughout the world, with the highest species diversity in the tropics. The name is derived from Ancient Greek poly "many" + podion "little foot", on account of the foot-like appearance of the rhizome and its branches...

, then grouped with genus Dryopteris

Dryopteris

Dryopteris , commonly called wood ferns, male ferns, and buckler ferns, is a genus of about 250 species of ferns with distribution in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with the highest species diversity in eastern Asia. Many of the species have stout, slowly creeping rootstocks that form a crown,...

, then with the genus Thelypteris

Thelypteris

Thelypteris is a genus of ferns in the family Thelypteridaceae. If the genus is defined fairly broadly, it contains 875 species, many of which are extremely similar to one another, and is found nearly worldwide. The ferns are terrestrial, with the exception of a few which are lithophytes...

. Genetic analysis has shown the Phegopteris

Phegopteris

Phegopteris is a genus of ferns known collectively as the Beech ferns. Traditionally this genus included only the first three species listed...

genus to be a sister clade to the rest of the thelypteroid ferns.

Rare hybrids with Phegopteris connectilis

Phegopteris connectilis

Phegopteris connectilis, commonly known as Long Beech Fern, is a species of fern native to forests of the Holarctic Kingdom.Unlike its close relative, Phegopteris hexagonoptera, which is terrestrial, this species is often epipetric as well as terrestrial.This species is normally apogamous, with a...

are known.

This fern makes an excellent garden plant, gradually filling in a bed.