Netted chain fern earns its names twice over: the species epithet "areolata" refers to the distinctive islands of blade tissue enclosed by joining veins, and those same net-like patterns inspired the common name centuries before botanists gave it a Latin one. Native from Nova Scotia down through the eastern United States, it is a plant of stream banks and wet woodland floors, deciduous in winter but returning each spring as a fresh flush of bright, lance-shaped fronds that grow one to two feet tall and spread just as wide.

In garden terms, it asks for moisture, shade, and patience. Organically rich, consistently wet, acidic soils suit it best, though it will tolerate more average conditions as long as the ground never truly dries out. Given what it wants, it spreads by branching rhizomes into broad colonies that suppress weeds and shelter small mammals. The fertile fronds, narrower than the sterile ones, carry spores in the chain-like rows that give both Woodwardia species their shared common name. A good choice for the shaded water garden, woodland edge, or any damp corner where a native groundcover is needed, though worth noting that in ideal conditions it can colonize rather ambitiously.