shield fern

From the shape of the indusia that cover the fern's sori (spores).

shield fern (plural shield ferns)

1. Certain of the ferns of four genera:
   1. Dryopteris (buckler ferns)
   2. Lastreopsis spp.
   3. Polystichum spp.
   4. (Australia) Sticherus spp.

• buckler fern
• sword fern

• “shield fern”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “shield fern”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• shield fern on Wikipedia.Wikipedia