#asplenium

Plant of the Day

Saturday 6 September 2025

At least three different species of fern were growing on this shaded stone wall including Asplenium trichomanes (maidenhair spleenwort), Asplenium scolopendrium (hart's tongue fern) and Dryopteris filix-mas (male fern). They certainly created a great wild addition to the urban landscape of Stromness, Orkney.

Opisthoncus sp. on Asplenium sp.

31-OCT-2025

but Tyzyfone just bought us a new fern

im gonna kill bun for this, i'm trying to be frugal, meanwhile this happens

Wall rue

f. Aspleniaceae

Asplenium nidus with sori. Commonly called the Bird's Nest Fern. The young leaves are edible and typically eaten boiled or stir fried. This particular plant is a cultivar that has these wavy leaf margins.

A very large epiphytic fern endemic to Australia, with a somewhat complicated taxonomic history, not helped by the fact that it's anatomy is so simple that there's not much to distinguish it from related species. For example, Japanese ferns which were considered to be A. australasicum were found to be so genetically distinct they got renamed A. setori. It's also very similar to Asplenium nidus, which unhelpfully is also called Bird's Nest Fern, and is found from east tropical Africa, across Asia to Japan, and in northern Australia and various Pacific Islands.

The fern can grow to over a meter and a half across, collecting falling plant debris in the middle of the rosette - and also acquiring snakes, which can be a surprise for fern collectors. A popular ornamental plant, where given sufficient drainage, and grown as a vegetable for the growing fronds in Taiwan.