Shield ferns are what define our definition of a fern leaf or frond. There are more than 100 varieties of shield ferns in the commercial trade, ranging in height from two feet to four feet. The leaf color is generally a lighter green to hunter green, and tend to grow in a vase shape of fronds. They have a fuller, coarser leaf, with less cutting in the fronds. There are several hundred varieties in the commercial trade, and six native species.
Royal ferns can grow up to six feet in height, and generate many fronds.
In time they form dense colonies of plants, giving a bushlike appearance in the landscape. They will die back completely to the ground in the winter. The cinnamon ferns new fronds emerge covered in a reddish hair, and are called fiddleheads. This is not the edible fiddlehead of commerce don t eat the Arkansas natives. As the fronds age, the red hairs drop off, but a few are retained where the little leaflets join the main stem of the leaf.