Polypody has traditional uses in cooking for its aroma and sweet taste, and in herbal medicine as a purgative and vermifuge.

Polypodium vulgare, the common polypody, is a fern developing isolated fronds along a horizontal rhizome.

[1] In Britain and Ireland, it is widespread in all areas except the drier parts of eastern England, and is most abundant in the high humidity of the uplands in the west and north; it occurs from sea level up to 760 m altitude.

[3] Polypodium vulgare is a hardy and highly adaptable species which commonly lives in the northern temperate zone.

Its evergreen leaves allow for the absorption of sunlight during seasons when light is scarce; this is an evolutionary advantage in deciduous forests.

Polypodium vulgare benefits the most from this relationship if it can grow in the crotch of a tree with forking branches, leading to greater water, sunlight, and mineral collection.

[5] Polypodium vulgare is an allotetraploid species, believed to have arisen by chromosome doubling of a sterile diploid hybrid between two ferns which are not known in Europe.

[4] Polypodium vulgare is a complex and unique species, making its taxonomic classification and identification challenging.

[8] Recognition of its leathery-textured fronds, circular sori, and "lateral veins forked three to four times" [9] are vital to identifying this species.

The Otto Lange group at the University of Würzburg first showed that stomatal opening and closing was performed in response to environmental humidity with Lange et al. 1971,[13][14] and continued to use it to further illuminate stomatal-humidity responses in stomata-humidity-temperature dynamics in Lösch 1977 & 1979,[15] and metabolic energy supply to fuel stomatal articulation in Lösch & Tenhunen 1981.