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Hymenophyllum tunbrigense
Also called Tunbridge Fern
Tunbridge filmy fern is a small, delicate, evergreen fern with translucent, single-cell-thick fronds that form dense mats on rocks, logs or tree bark in damp, shaded places. It is rarely grown in cultivation and needs constant humidity and shade.
Hymenophyllum tunbrigense, the Tunbridge filmy fern or Tunbridge filmy-fern, is a small, fragile perennial leptosporangiate fern which forms large dense colonies of overlapping leaves from creeping rhizomes. The common name derives from the leaves which are very thin, only a single cell thick, and translucent, giving the appearance of a wet film. The evergreen fronds are bipinnatifid, deeply and irregularly dissected, about 3 to 6 cm long, 2 cm across with dark winged stipes. In contrast to the similar H. wilsonii the fronds are more divided, flattened, appressed to the substrate and tend to have a bluish tint.
The fronds are monomorphic and produce sori along the frond segments close to the rachis.
While there are records of its cultivation (Harold Stuart Thompson grew a specimen from Somerset in a bell jar in his bedroom for a decade), it is not generally cultivated. It is propagated at Kew Gardens for reestablishment in suitable habitat.
Apparently worldwide, but discontinuous, in distribution but most frequent in western European oceanic regions like the British Isles. There is uncertainty whether similar plants found in Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, South America, South Africa and Asia should also be included in this species.
Hymenophyllum alveolatum · Austral Filmy Fern · Hymenophyllum bivalve · Hymenophyllum brachypus · Creeping Filmy Fern · Hymenophyllum cristatum · Hymenophyllum cruentum · Common Filmy Fern · Drooping Filmy Fern · Hymenophyllum dilatatum · Falkland Filmy Fern · Fan Like Filmy Fern
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hymenophyllum tunbrigense 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.
