[3] This fern is pale to yellow green in colour and has elliptic, double pinnate leaves which are deciduous.

This small, deciduous fern is normally recorded from cool, shaded, north easterly to north westerly facing scree-slopes or where there is scree of large blocks of acidic rocks, particularly in areas where the snow lies late into the Spring and there is melt-water trickling down gullies.

[7] Athyrium flexile was first described in 1853[7] but may be a stunted variety of Alpine Lady-fern A. distentifolium, a single gene mutation accounting for the difference between the two.

[8] It is considered by some experts to be a variant of Alpine Lady-fern (Athyrium distentifolium' var.

[1][5][9] Regarded as nationally scarce and vulnerable, more than 75% of the population is found in the high Cairngorm mountains including the boulder field plateau of Braeriach and in upper Glen Doll.