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Blechnum
Also called Hard Ferns, Kiokio
Blechnum, known as hard fern or kiokio, is a genus of about 30 species in the strict PPG I sense (up to 250 in broader treatments), mostly from the Neotropics with a few in southern Africa. Commonly grown members are shade-loving, evergreen ferns that do best in humus-rich, consistently moist soil.
Blechnum, known as hard fern, is a genus of ferns in the family Blechnaceae, subfamily Blechnoideae, according to the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I). Two very different circumscriptions of the genus are used by different authors. In the PPG I system, based on Gasper et al. (2016), Blechnum is one of 18 genera in the subfamily Blechnoideae, and has about 30 species. Other sources use a very broadly defined Blechnum s.l., including accepting only two other genera in the subfamily. The genus then has about 250 species. In the PPG I circumscription, the genus is mostly neotropical, with a few southern African species.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Blechnum 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.
