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Helminthostachys zeylanica
Also called Flowering Fern
Kamraj is a terrestrial fern of Southeast Asia and Australia that grows from a short underground rhizome and bears spike-like fertile fronds. It is a wild, medicinal and vegetable plant rather than a common garden or houseplant, and it needs a moist, shaded, humid tropical site.
Helminthostachys zeylanica is a terrestrial, herbaceous fern of southeastern Asia and Australia, commonly known as kamraj and tunjuk-langit. The species is like the other members of its family, it has clusters of sporangia on stems of fertile, spike-like fronds.
The rhizome of this annual plant is short, creeping, underground, and stout. They can bear either a solitary frond or several fronds. Leaves are lanceolate with the margins entire or irregularly serrate.
The roots of this plant are a popular medicine in China, where they are known as "Di wu gong". The roots are harvested during the wet season in July–August. Only wild plants are harvested. In Malaysia, the leaves are dried and smoked to treat bleeding nose. The plant is eaten as a vegetable and used medicinally for impotence in India. It is known in the Philippines as túkod-langit.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Helminthostachys zeylanica 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.
