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Osmunda japonica
Osmunda japonica is a deciduous fern native to east Asia, grown for its edible young fronds (fiddleheads) and as a foliage plant. It needs consistently moist soil and shade or dappled light, and does best in woodland-style conditions.
Osmunda japonica (syn. Osmunda nipponica Makino), also called Asian royal fern or fiddlehead, is a fern in the genus Osmunda native to east Asia, including Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, and the far east of Russia on the island of Sakhalin. It is called gobi (고비) in Korean, zenmai (ゼンマイ; 薇) in Japanese, and zǐqí or juécài (紫萁 or 蕨菜) in Chinese.
It is a deciduous herbaceous plant which produces separate fertile and sterile fronds. The sterile fronds are spreading, up to 80–100 cm tall, bipinnate, with pinnae 20–30 cm long and pinnules 4–6 cm long and 1.5–2 cm broad; the fertile fronds are erect and shorter, 20–50 cm tall.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Osmunda japonica 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.
