A delicate fern that grows on mossy tree trunks or on rocks. The rhizomes taste like black licorice (hence the name) and has medicinal properties to soothe sore throats and coughs.
Description:
- Stems are moderately stout, scales dense, lanceolate (pointed), brown; sweet licorice taste
- Leaves are few to numerous, loosely clustered to 60 cm; pale/mid green, often reddish when young,
- Petiole slender, to 20 × 0.2 cm.
- Blades to 40 cm, narrowly ovate to oblong, not leathery, whitish multicellular hairs (at least along the rachis); scales sparse on the rachis abaxially, brown, narrow, and hair-like, mostly less than 3 cells wide
- Sori (a cluster of spore-producing receptacles on the underside of a fern frond) round, less than 3 mm; sporangiasters absent
Source: Oregon Flora Project
