David, that is a most interesting fern; I love the tattered leaf edges! You didn't mention where your friend lives (Florida? or perhaps up north?) I've been googling and looking at fern pictures for over an hour and I couldn't find a match.
My first thought was possibly one of the Holly Ferns (Cyrtomium)
http://garden.org/plants/searc... Some do have tattered leaf edges but I just couldn't find anything close to the one in your photo.
Then I thought maybe it was a Lady Ferns (Athyrium)
http://garden.org/plants/brows... but couldn't anything there either.
I searched through photos of Dryopteris, Rumohra and a few others also but got nowhere. It's such an interesting fern and I'm really curious as to the ID so hopefully someone more familiar with ferns will recognize it and be able to give us a name.
