| Author | (Michaux) Watt | |
| Distribution | Limited to the Mountains, essentially just in the southern half of the province.
This is a circumboreal species, in N.A. ranging southward to NJ, PA, IL, MT, and OR, with disjunct populations in the mountains of southern NC and nearby TN. Amazingly, the species skips over VA, as there are many records for nearby WV as well as NC.
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| Abundance | Very rare to locally rare, mainly from Buncombe County southward. The NCNHP database has 12-14 records, of which 10-11 are probably still extant. The State Rank is probably better at S1S2, though the NCNHP's S2 is still suitable. This is a State Endangered species, mainly owing to the great disjunction of the NC populations. | |
| Habitat | This species grows in crevices on cold/cool, moist, and shaded rock faces -- mainly behind waterfalls in the spray zone. It also grows on high elevation cliffs where there is some seepage, and rarely does it grow in spruce-fir forests. | |
| Phenology | Fruits from April to August. | |
| Identification | This rare fern has a distinctly triangular blade on a very long stipe. The stipe is slender, often 12 inches or longer, with the triangular blade somewhat shorter, usually about 10 inches long and 8 inches wide. The blade is pinnate-pinnatifid cut, with the pinnules not quite cut to the midrib of the pinna. There are 10-12 pairs of opposite pinnae before the narrowly dissected apex of the blade, the basal the longest (at about 4 inches long) and each one above shorter. The lowest pair of pinnae are usually angled downward, often at a 45-degree angle to the stipe/rachis. In this species, each pinna is sessile but does not have decurrent tissue ("wings") along the rachis. The quite numerous Broad Beech Fern (P. hexagonoptera) has the lower pinnae with decurrent tissue along the rachis, and that species grows in rich soil of hardwood forests and not on rocks. Both species have numerous rounded sori beneath each pinnule. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Most references named this species as Thelypteris phegopteris until very recently.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Long Beech Fern, Narrow Beech Fern. All three names are in somewhat frequent usage, with none truly a dominant one. | |
| State Rank | S2 | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | E | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FAC link |
| USACE-emp | FACU link |
