The thing on the inside you just described may be a fiddle head, just wait a week and if you see anything growing in the middle it is alive, if not its probably dead, although if you can I'd recomend just leaving it in the soil to fade back into the earth, no need to dirupt things, another fern will move into that epty sspot if you are watering well.

Really hard to say. I see green curled up fronds and a week later they are not coming up, sometimes. I am in zone 3/4 and tried an autumn fern. It survived one winter, but not two. It sure looked like it was green and ready to burst, but never did. Time will tell. I waited until August before I gave up hoping.

The label on the Autumn Ferns in our area say that it is only hardy to zone 5. This made me decide against them in case we had a really cold winter. The label on the Christmas Fern said zone 3 so I chose it instead. I've read though that labels aren't always accurate.

I have had ferns surprise me very late in the season, so I never give up till maybe August either. Mind you, I've had ferns disappoint me too! But you'll never know for sure if you don't leave it and wait.