Schizaea pusillaPursh

little curlygrass fern

WFO wfo-0001109624 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Navin Sasikumar
fig. a Navin Sasikumar, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-26 / obs. 154039363
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Sandra Keller
fig. b Sandra Keller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 84194466
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Sandra Keller
fig. c Sandra Keller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 44615559
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Chris Hoess
fig. d Chris Hoess, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 21877833
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Chris Hoess
fig. e Chris Hoess, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 21877784
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Sandra Keller
fig. f Sandra Keller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 16855921
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by Bonnie Semmling
fig. g Bonnie Semmling, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 190504154
Schizaea pusilla, photographed by er-birds
fig. h er-birds, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188775878

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 8 botanical countries

Regions where Schizaea pusilla is native: Delaware, New Brunswick, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ecuador, Peru New BrunswickNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNova ScotiaEcuadorPeru Delaware
Native distribution of Schizaea pusilla, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Delaware DEL NORTHERN AMERICA
New Brunswick NBR
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
Nova Scotia NSC
Ecuador ECU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Peru PER

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 3 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Microschizaea pusilla (Pursh) C.F.Reed
  • Schizaea filifolia La Pylaie
  • Schizaea tortuosa Muhl.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.