Every plant tells a story of some sort, this one is one of survival. I got my original plant from the Legendary Siskiyou Rare Plant Nursery when Baldassare Mineo was proprietor. I kept this fern in a gallon pot where it stayed with very little care or attention for about 17 years. I never planted it out because I only had the one and I was worried that It wasn’t rain hardy here. So a couple of years ago, a fella from Albany came to visit the nursery and he looked at the fern and asked if I propagated it from spores, I told him I hadn’t had any time to do spore propagation and that was my only specimen of that fern. He asked if he could take a fertile frond and I said please do if you bring me back some starts. I swear it was a few weeks later, he shows up with a whole flat of prothallii! In the time between him taking the frond and bringing back the starts the mother plant (which had been in decline for some time) had actually passed on. I thought this guy was some sort of a magician with ferns and later came to learn that he had been a propagator for the O’byrnes at the famed NW Garden Nursery. If you are out there man, I have some other ferns that need your magic hand!

A striking evergreen fern native to eastern North America, Pellaea atropurpurea thrives in rocky, limestone-rich habitats such as cliffs and outcrops. It features deep green, pinnate fronds with distinctive dark purple stems, adding textural interest to rock gardens and crevices. Best grown in well-drained, alkaline soil with partial to full sun. Drought-tolerant once established.

Hardy in USDA zones 3–9.