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Cibotium
Also called Hāpu'u
Cibotium, or manfern, is a genus of 11 tropical tree ferns, native to Hawaiʻi, Southeast Asia and Central America and Mexico. Commonly grown members such as Cibotium glaucum and Cibotium chamissoi need humid, shaded, frost-free conditions and steady moisture.
Cibotium (from Greek κιβώτιον, kibṓtion, "little chest" or "box"), also known as manfern, is a genus of 11 species of tropical tree ferns. It is the only genus in family Cibotiaceae in the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016 (PPG I). Alternatively, the family may be treated as the subfamily Cibotioideae of a very broadly defined family Cyatheaceae, the family placement used for the genus in Plants of the World Online as of November 2019.
Species of the genus are distributed fairly narrowly in Hawaiʻi (four species, plus a hybrid, collectively known as hāpuʻu), Southeast Asia (five species), and the cloud forests of Central America and Mexico (two species). The natural habitat of Cibotium is among the dripping trees and stream gullies of the rainforests on Hawaiʻi's windward volcanic slopes (Olaa Forest).
Cibotium glaucum, from Hawaiʻi, is the most frequently encountered Cibotium species in the horticultural trade, along with its sibling species Cibotium chamissoi and the large-growing Cibotium menziesii. They are sometimes seen in California garden designs.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cibotium 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.
