You could make an argument that sword fern, more than any tree, is the iconic species of the forests we call home. I would not argue. Even in a cedar-dominated forest, where other understory plants struggle to grow, firework-shaped sword ferns keep the scene verdant.
Which makes the ongoing spread of a mysterious blight all the more eerie. Lately, I have come across two patches on the Key Peninsula. Sword ferns around the edges of the patches have brown and twisted fronds, crispy as shed madrona leaves. In the hearts of the patches, the ferns have been reduced to sorry- looking stumps.
One patch had 36 dead ferns at the time I visited. It was large enough to open a worrying window into a forest with nothing but bare earth for an understory…