Onoclea sensibilis (Sensitive Fern)
Onoclea sensibilis (Sensitive Fern)
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$30 minimum per species for seed.
$30 minimum per species for seed.
Each species requires a minimum of $30 of seed to proceed with checkout.
Pure Live Seed
Pure Live Seed
Seed is provided in Pure Live Seed (PLS) unless otherwise stated.
Pure Live Seed (PLS) refers to the percentage of a seed lot that consists of the desired species and is viable (capable of germination).
Here's why PLS is crucial for native seeds:
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Accurate Planting:
- PLS helps determine the actual number of viable seeds in a given weight or volume of seed.
- This ensures you plant the correct amount of seed to achieve the desired density and success rate.
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Cost-Effectiveness:
- By knowing the PLS, you can avoid overspending on seed that may not germinate.
- This is especially important for native seeds, which can be more expensive than some cultivated varieties.
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Weed Control:
- PLS helps minimize the presence of weed seeds within the seed lot.
- This reduces competition for resources and ensures the successful establishment of the desired native plants.
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Ecological Restoration:
- Using high-quality native seeds with a high PLS is essential for successful ecological restoration projects.
- It helps to re-establish diverse and resilient plant communities that support local wildlife.
Weight Conversions lbs. to oz.
Weight Conversions lbs. to oz.
0.01 pounds = 0.16 ounces
- 0.1 pounds = 1.6 ounces
- 0.25 pounds = 4 ounces
- 0.5 pounds = 8 ounces
- 0.75 pounds = 12 ounces
- 1.00 pounds = 16 ounces
Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis) fills moist, shaded ground with broad green fronds. It spreads by rhizomes and is a useful fern to consider where soils remain consistently damp. Its foliage is sensitive to drought and frost, so protect it from drying conditions and expect seasonal browning rather than year-round greenery.
Check the product options above for the available format and quantity.
Plant specifications & ecological relationships
Key growing facts
| Sunlight | Partial sun to light shade |
|---|---|
| Soil moisture | Wet to moist |
| Height | 1½–3 ft |
Show / hide ▾Growing & planting details
| Growth habit | Branching rhizomes often form small clonal colonies |
|---|---|
| Root form | Creeping rhizomes; spreads in consistently moist soil. |
| Soil pH | Published cultivation guidance lists acidic soil conditions; no optimal numeric interval is established. |
| Cultivation hardiness zones | Zones 2a–10b (general cultivation guidance) |
| Deer browsing | Limited deer browsing of sterile fronds is reported. |
Plant identification & seed reference
| Botanical name | Onoclea sensibilis |
|---|---|
| Other common names | sensitive fern; Bead Fern; Sensitive Fern |
| Plant family | Onocleaceae |
Show / hide ▾Plant communities & associates
Green River community records
Wet sand prairie: Lee County, Illinois (2006). Selected catalog plants recorded in this community: Asclepias syriaca; Bolboschoenus fluviatilis; Calamagrostis canadensis; Helianthus grosseserratus; Pycnanthemum virginianum; Rudbeckia subtomentosa.
Sedge meadow East: Lee County, Illinois (2006). Selected catalog plants recorded in this community: Bolboschoenus fluviatilis; Caltha palustris; Verbena hastata.
The study site includes restoration plantings. Community records do not establish county-native origin or a seed-mix recipe.
Other regional plant communities
These plants are named with this species in published vegetation accounts. Each list keeps its community and region; some records describe a shared vegetation type rather than neighboring plants in a measured plot. They are ecological records, not a planting recipe, and may include plants unsuitable for a particular garden.
- Lakeshore forest and shrub community (Lake Duparquet, Quebec): Salix discolor.
Show / hide ▾Native range & C-value
| Wetland indicator — NWPL 2022 Midwest | FACW |
|---|---|
| C-value — Chicago region, Flora 2017 | 5 |
| Chicago-region native — Flora 2017 | Yes |
| Native range — U.S. states | Alabama; Arkansas; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Vermont; Virginia; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming |
| County nativity | Not yet verified; occurrence records do not establish nativity. |
Show / hide ▾Pollinators & wildlife
Caterpillars & other plant-feeding insects
This plant has published caterpillar host records for the butterflies and moths listed below. These are larval feeding relationships, separate from adult nectar visits. The records span a North American literature compilation and do not establish that every insect occurs locally or uses only this plant.
Moths
- Callopistria floridensis — Florida Fern Caterpillar
- Herpetogramma theseusalis
- Papaipema inquaesita — Sensitive Border Moth, Sensitive Fern Borer
Show / hide ▾Frequently asked questions
What are the ideal growing conditions for Sensitive Fern?
Onoclea sensibilis performs best in partial sun to full shade with mesic to wet (moist woods, swamps & shaded seeps) conditions. It thrives in authentic regional soil types ranging from sandy loam to well-drained clay loams.
How do I germinate and establish Sensitive Fern from seed?
Seed of Onoclea sensibilis has a germination code of C(30). For best results, sow seed in late fall/winter for natural outdoor freeze-thaw stratification, or cold-moist stratify in refrigeration for 30 to 60 days before spring indoor propagation.
Is Sensitive Fern deer and herbivore resistant?
Yes. Native plants adapted to Midwestern habitats naturally produce protective secondary compounds and fibrous textures that make them highly resistant to deer, rabbits, and other grazing herbivores.
When should I expect Sensitive Fern to emerge and bloom?
Established plants break dormancy in spring as soil temperatures warm, developing vigorous foliage before blooming in their seasonal window to provide vital nectar when native pollinators need it most.
Show / hide ▾Sources & ecological notes
Plant communities: USDA Forest Service, Fire Effects Information System (FEIS): Salix discolor. Selected association facts regrouped in original wording; regional scope retained. No source photographs or captions reproduced.
Caterpillar host records: Shropshire, K.J. & Tallamy, D.W. (2025), Lepidoptera of North America, Supplement 1. Contains information from this database made available under the Open Database License (ODbL 1.0). Natural Communities selected species-level records and screened source qualifications. The complete selection and transformation instructions for this page are available below under the same license.
Appearance and site selection: NC State Extension Plant Toolbox. Selected botanical facts checked 7 September 2026; introduction written by Natural Communities.
C-value assessment: Flora 2017 / Universal FQA database 80; source taxon Onoclea sensibilis. Wilhelm & Rericha (2017), Flora of the Chicago Region, via Universal FQA database 80 (Kenneth Johnson, 2018). Selected assessment facts; no Flora prose reproduced.
State nativity: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 4 June 2026 release; taxon Onoclea sensibilis. © The Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. CC BY 3.0; selected and reformatted. Only records marked native, not extinct and not doubtful are included. Kew cannot warrant the quality or accuracy of these data; no Kew endorsement is implied.
Chicago-region nativity, U.S. state nativity and county occurrence are separate assessments. County nativity has not yet been verified for this listing. These records do not describe the origin of the stock offered for sale.
C-value source: Flora of the Chicago Region (2017), Universal FQA database 80. Matched source taxon: Onoclea sensibilis. Exact.
Sources checked September 5, 2026. Regional assessments and growing observations apply to their stated settings. Unverified fields are omitted; missing information does not mean an ecological relationship is absent.
- Illinois Wildflowers — John Hilty. Limited botanical facts presented in Natural Communities’ own wording. Source-specific observations retain their stated scope; photographs, original descriptive prose and compiled relationship tables are excluded. Supports: Deer Resistance; Height; Opening botanical description; Primary Native Habitats; Root Architecture & Depth; Soil Moisture Range; Spread Habit; Sun Exposure; Sunlight Exposure.
- Universal FQA — Flora-linked Chicago database 80. Taxonomic names, family and regional nativity originally checked against Kenneth Johnson’s Flora-linked database 80 (2018), citing Wilhelm & Rericha (2017). Limited factual identification only; the C-value follows this Flora-linked database wherever an exact or documented synonym match is available. Supports: Alternate Common Names; Botanical Name; Chicago-region native status; Plant Family.
- USACE/ERDC fqadata — Chicago Region FQA 2017. Herman, B., Sliwinski, R. & Whitaker, S. (2017), Chicago Region FQA Calculator; distributed by USACE/ERDC in fqadata under CC0. Values may differ from Flora of the Chicago Region (2017). CC0 dedication. Retained for comparison; the displayed C-value follows Flora database 80.
- NC State Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox. Limited botanical facts presented in Natural Communities’ own wording. Source-specific observations retain their stated scope; photographs, original descriptive prose and compiled relationship tables are excluded. Supports: Alternate Common Names; Soil pH Range; USDA Hardiness Zones.
- USACE National Wetland Plant List 2022 — Midwest. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 2022 National Wetland Plant List, Midwest region; effective February 13, 2024. Federal data. Supports: Wetland Indicator Status.
Flora rating attribution: Kenneth Johnson (2018), Flora of the Chicago Region UFQA Database, following Gerould Wilhelm and Laura Rericha (2017), Flora of the Chicago Region: A Floristic and Ecological Synthesis. Individual rating facts are presented with original commentary; the calculator’s software license is not treated as a license for the underlying Flora publication.
Historical botanical names remain visible where used by the source. These regional accounts supplement the available Chicago Flora evidence.
Regional assessment details
C-value: 5 — Chicago region, Flora 2017. Chicago-region status: Native.
Verified state nativity: Alabama; Arkansas; Colorado; Connecticut; Delaware; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Minnesota; Mississippi; Missouri; Nebraska; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Tennessee; Texas; Vermont; Virginia; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming (WCVP taxon: Onoclea sensibilis)
County nativity: Not yet verified for this listing. County occurrence is not a county-native assessment.
Community records adapted from Ebinger et al. (2009), Table 3, CC BY 4.0; selected facts reorganized by Natural Communities.
Reusable research data
{"title":"Natural Communities selected host records for Onoclea sensibilis","source":"Shropshire, K.J. & Tallamy, D.W. (2025). Lepidoptera of North America, north of Mexico: an annotated list containing geographic ranges and host-plant records. Supplement 1.","source_doi":"https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.1261.160796.suppl1","download":"https://binary.pensoft.net/file/1478226","source_sha256":"250a11ec19c89f81374af3bc632f6897491cbe540edb09ccdaf298dc73bf9472","license":"ODbL-1.0","license_url":"https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/1-0/","method":"Complete machine-readable selection and alteration file under ODbL section 4.6(b). In source worksheet UDELep May 2025, select only rows whose column A UDLepID appears in selection. Each selection entry contains [retained source plant names, selected insect IDs]. Create one record per selected ID and retained plant name; these are reported larval hosts. Scientific insect name is the first two whitespace-separated tokens of column H; common name is E; source category is AB. Other source fields are unchanged and are not part of this derived table. No other rows or host pairs are used on this page. Group Butterfly and Skipper categories together, and other categories as moths; retain exotic category labels. Display names are sorted by scientific insect name.","plant":"Onoclea sensibilis","scope":"Host literature synthesis; no county nativity or local insect occurrence inferred.","selection":[[["Onoclea sensibilis"],["202103","206846","209273"]]]}
A great woodland garden fern with excellent leaf texture! Can be somewhat aggressive in optimum conditions. Commonly called sensitive fern because the green vegetative fronds are sensitive to and suffer almost immediate damage from the first fall frost.
Plant Shipping & Care
Plant Shipping & Care
We want to ensure that our customers get what they want, a native backyard oasis. To do that, we need to follow a few simple guidelines and give you some information and pointers to make sure you get your plants delivered in a healthy state.
As a reminder, you will receive an email to confirm your pickup or shipping window just before the plants are ready. See Order Fulfillment below for seasonal fulfillment windows.
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Order Fulfilment - When Your Plants or Other Items Will Be Ready
We take orders all year long and seed is shipped all year, but we only provide the plants to you in certain fulfillment windows to ensure healthy plants.
Wholesale Orders
- Shipped or are Ready For Pick Up As Requested.
Retail & Website Orders
- Seed Typically Ships Out Within One Week Of Order All Year Long
- Typically, single species flats ship when ready, sometimes as soon as early to mid-April (depends on weather) through early-October.
- Mixed species kits are batched and shipped as indicated on the product page.
- If a plant order is placed while outside of the plant fulfillment window your plants will be reserved through your payment, however, the order will not be fulfilled and shipped until the following spring. We don't want to provide you plants when they won't be happy during the cold winter months.
- Early in the spring and later in the fall certain species may be dormant or partially dormant with brown leaves, however they will return to grow healthy next growing season.
- Your order may arrive in several different shipments.
- If certain plants within an order will not be available until a later date, we may choose to hold the full order until all are ready. In certain circumstances, we may choose to send them in two separate shipments
- Fulfillment is always dependent upon plant availability. We try our best but sometimes plants do not overwinter well and perish. If a plant is on back order you will receive an email indicating the estimated shipping date. If we can not provide the plant we will first notify you and give you an option of substitution or a refund of that individual species.
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Where We Ship
What to Expect When Receiving Your Delivery
- Your plants will be packaged with the utmost care
- We will need to cut back certain plants prior to shipping. This seems counter-intuitive, however, the fewer leaves the less water the plants can lose during shipping, resulting in healthier plants for you. This also enables the plants to fit within the protective packaging and shipped safely.
Shipments
- Larger plant shipments will look similar to the picture below with a tray of your plants and a cardboard box to protect them during shipping.
What to Do With Your Plants After Receiving Your Delivery
- Unpack your order IMMEDIATELY
- Inspect for damage and report any issues immediately to Natives@NaturalCommunities.net
- Water your plants
- Install your plants as quickly as possible and water the entire garden area thoroughly
- If you cannot install your plants immediately
- Some plants may not be in a container, put them into some kind of a container such as a paper cup with loose soil until installation
- Make sure each plant is receiving the appropriate amount of light.
- Continue to water daily each morning and possibly again in the afternoon
- No additional fertilizer is needed
Seed Shipping & Care
Seed Shipping & Care
There is a minimum order requirement of $30 for each seed species. Seed ships all year and typically ships within a week of an order being placed.
We have attempted to put together some basic information regarding native seed installation, establishment, and maintenance. We hope you find it helpful. If you need further assistance on native seed establishment, please schedule a free consolation call here.
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