Any ideas as to ID, please (1 Viewer)

[IamFof]

I found this while wandering through a new, to me, Nature Reserve, in S Cornwall.
Plant is approx. 5' (150cm) tall, with opposite, compound leaves on long stems.
New stems look like the Croziers found on ferns.
Old dead stems very similar to old dead fern fronds.
Any ideas?

Thanks
Fof

 

[Butty]

Royal fern. Nothing else like it in UK as far as I know, although I thought it always grew in more-or-less marshy places. Maybe it don't!

 

[IamFof]

Royal fern. Nothing else like it in UK as far as I know, although I thought it always grew in more-or-less marshy places. Maybe it don't!

Thanks, Butty
I've never seen a fern that grew a "flower". They have all produced spores from sori on the leaves.
This is growing in a mixed deciduous wood surrounding a reservoir, so the water table can't be too far down.

 

[Butty]

I've never seen a fern that grew a "flower". They have all produced spores from sori on the leaves.

A lot of the ferns-that-don't-look-like-ferns do it - just a different sort of leaf for spore-bearing.

 

[aeshna5]

Royal fern. Nothing else like it in UK as far as I know, although I thought it always grew in more-or-less marshy places. Maybe it don't!

Just needs damp soil so doesn't have to be marshy as such, but often in ditches & the like. As you say quite unique amongst our native ferns but is also often planted in gardens & parks so may naturalise outside its normal, natural distribution, though Cornwall is a good area for it to be native.