Plant of the Day

Friday 6 February 2026

An evergreen fern forming a large clump, Polystichum munitum (western sword fern, giant holly fern, sword fern) makes a great addition to a woodland garden. It thrives in a shaded, fertile, moist, humus-rich soil but the crowns need to be protected from excessive winter wet.

Western sword fern (Polystichum munitum) and Big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum), Olympic National Park

Also known as pūnui. Polystichum refers to the parallel rows of spore cases on the underside of the fronds, and vestitum (Latin for "clothed") denotes the dense cover of the scales on its leaf stalks. Fronds grow up to 600mm in length.

An evergreen or semi-green, cold-tolerant fern most common on New Zealand’s South Island, and a wide spread of Subantarctic islands. 

In the northern part of its range P. vestitum is confined to montane regions or where temperature inversions keep the climate cold, but further south it can grow right down to the coast. Found in exposed habitats, such as forest margins, gulley floors and tussock grasslands, but it also commonly extends into forest in colder, wetter parts of New Zealand. On Macquarie Island it dominates the fernbrake communities, but is severely threatened by rabbits. 

Polystichum imbricans, Narrowleaf Sword Fern

perennial fern

...instead of cluttering my pet blog so much. I'm really getting into that plant thing and the drama some plants go through, so if you'd rather not be bothered with lots of plant stuff on my pet blog let me know! 😀

For those interested, however, here goes:

Calathea update: The Fusion Whites seem to get adjusted to the lower humidity, but not without losses. The leaves with lots of white are not doing so well and likely will be lost, but the others seem fine now. The less-white one is growing two completely new leaves from the rhizome, it seems (you can't know how relieved I am!). The whiter one has a single healthy leaf left and still hasn't decided what it wants to do with the second sprouting leaf (it lost the first one during the first days in lower humidity).

Not technically Calatheas, but I bought two Ctenanthe Golden Mosaics online in the last few weeks. One is from a shop and it's growing a new leaf now, the other one is from a private listing and just arrived this week, but so far it's looking good. Usually I don't buy the same plant twice, but the second one was so beautiful I mulled over it a couple weeks and then decided to just buy it 😂

Another exception is a second mini Stromanthe sanguinea Triostar that I bought to replace the mini Calatheas I moved to my desk because they were not doing all that great in the north window shelf (all are doing so much better now! Actually growing 'n all that). My first Triostar in that shelf is growing nicely, so I'm thinking another one will probably do great there as well. I also got a fern (not quite sure what type, but I love them) that I bought for the same reason.

My first Triostar on the left, the new one on the right!

I'd actually have more to tell, but I'm getting really tired now and it's late... 😂