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Asplenium australasicum
Also called Crow's Nest Fern
Asplenium australasicum, the bird's nest fern or crow's nest fern, is an epiphytic Australasian species of fern in the family Aspleniaceae.
Asplenium australasicum specimens were taken from logged areas, which helped them become popular in horticulture. It adapts readily to cultivation, as long as it has good drainage. Poor drainage renders it vulnerable to rotting. It can be grown in a tub or barrel. In cultivation it is occasionally attacked by white coconut scale on the underside of the fronds.
A. australasicum grows on rocks or as an epiphyte on trees and is native to eastern New South Wales and Queensland. The clumps can reach a large size, with the centre of the fern acting as a reservoir for debris. The colonial botanist William Woolls wrote "... as a caution to fern gatherers, sometimes a species of black snake coils itself up in the centre" (of the birds nest fern).
Apart from its use as an ornamental plant, bird's nest fern is also a popular vegetable in Taiwan, particularly in the Eastern part of the island, where the young emerging fronds of both A. australasicum and A. nidus are used as a leafy vegetable, from either wild or cultivated plants.
Black spleenwort · Asplenium aequibasis · Egyptian spleenwort · Asplenium anceps · Bird’s Nest Fern · Asplenium appendiculatum · Asplenium arcanum · Fern · Asplenium attenuatum · Eared Spleenwort · Azorean Spleenwort · Asplenium bifrons
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Asplenium australasicum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
