The bracken on hillsides is now orangey-brown and dead, and gets battered down by winds, snow and rain. However, it still provides shelter for the wrens that flit about beneath its old fronds, just occasionally coming out to sing at this time of the year. In woods there are other kinds of fern that are still quite green. Hard fern is the species that best survives the winter. It has tougher, more leathery fronds than most other ferns. The sterile outer fronds, which are the shape of ladders, are the hardiest part of the fern and grow in a floppy green rosette, often under hazels and hornbeams. The fertile fronds that grow up in the middle of the rosette stand erect and with their narrow leaves look like fish bones. Another woodland fern that here and there is still alive and green is male fern (its name, not its sex), but its large fronds are by now crumpled and sprawling. In spring the new plants will come up in a circle of bright green fronds that will look like a very tall, important crown.