The goblin fern, which requires a thick layer of leaf litter on the forest floor, is disappearing from North American forests  In spots where it has recently vanished, the leaf litter is unusually thin and, unlike those places where this fern still thrives, is teeming with the European earthworm Lumbricus rubellus, which eats leaf litter  L
rubellus is thus probably responsible for the fern' s disappearance
Dead leaves from goblin ferns make up the greater part of the layer of leaf litter on the forest floors where the goblin fern has recently vanished.