Green starburst

One of the lovely things about ferns is the regularity of the species that grow like this as a series of crowns. Others spread from underground rhizomes in the way that bracken does.

This is Dryopteris wallichiana, a very widespread species, but in this case from Yunnan, given to me by my friend Nigel Price, Head Gardener at Crarae Garden, who collected the spores in the wild.