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Asplenium trichomanes
Maidenhair spleenwort is a small, evergreen rock fern with tufts of narrow fronds that grows in crevices of stone walls and cliffs. It is hardy and does best in shade or partial shade in gritty, free-draining soil with little water.
Asplenium trichomanes, the maidenhair spleenwort (not to be confused with the similarly-named but very different maidenhair fern), is a small fern in the spleenwort genus Asplenium. It is a widespread and common species, occurring almost worldwide in a variety of rocky habitats. It is a variable fern with several subspecies.
The specific epithet trichomanes refers to a Greek word for fern.
Asplenium trichomanes is valued in cultivation for its hardiness (down to −20 °C (−4 °F)), its evergreen foliage and its ability to colonise crevices in stone walls. It prefers a fully or partially shaded aspect. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
It is widespread in temperate and subarctic areas and also occurs in mountainous regions in the tropics. Its range includes most of Europe and much of Asia south to Turkey, Iran and the Himalayas with a population in Yemen. It occurs in northern, southern and parts of eastern Africa and also in eastern Indonesia, south-east Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand and Hawaii. It is found in North America and Central America and Cuba, and the northern and western regions of South America such as Chile. Even though its range is wide spread, it is often rare, and populations are widely spread out from each other based on the availability of suitable habitat.
Bird’s Nest Fern · Hen And Chickens · Scott's Spleenwort · Spleenwort · Singlesorus spleenwort · Hawai'I birdnest fern · Hart's tonguefern · Spleenwort
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Asplenium trichomanes by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
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.
