On an expedition to photograph Allium sphaerocephalon (Round-headed Leek) in the Avon Gorge, I came across an unusual Polypody. It wasn't anything like P. vulgare (Polypody) because the height (about 50 to 60 cm), leaf-shape, leaf texture and colour were all wrong.

Looking it up in about four different reference books it seems to have some the features of P. cambricum (Southern Polypody) although I didn't think to look at the sori. The leaves are rather triangular and have some serrations, the bottom pinnules point away from the mid-rib and it was tall and stood upright in the woods. This plant prefers limestone areas according to most texts and the largest concentration of it is in the Bristol/Somerset area of the British Isles which is exactly where it was found.

Doubt has been cast on my original identification of P. cambricum by a botanist who knows these Polypodys better than I do and I still haven't been shown a definitive Polypodium cambricum. So other possibilities are that this is an oversized Polypodium interjectum (it was more than 40 cm tall) or perhaps a hybrid between P. interjectum and P. cambricum: P x shivasiae.

I'll have to go again and see if I can see P. cambricum and the hybrid.

Woods on Avon Gorge, 2nd August 2005

Added on December 14th 2005, amended 10th May 2009, updtaed 17th July 2011