Lemmon's hollyfern is a small, evergreen woodland fern from western North America, found on serpentine rock and soils in mountains. It is seldom grown in gardens, and it does best in cool, well-drained, gritty conditions with some shade.
Family
Dryopteridaceae (Wood fern family)
Grows as
Fern
Light
Part shade, Shade
Water
Keep the soil evenly moist during the growing season and let the top layer dry slightly between waterings.
Soil
Gritty, well-drained mix, ideally with some serpentine or lime-rich grit.
Temperature
Hardy to around -20 °C; protect from sustained heat above 30 °C.
How easy
Moderate
Native range
S. British Columbia to NW. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate
About
Polystichum lemmonii is a species of fern known by the common names Lemmon's holly fern and Shasta fern. It is native to western North America from the Sierra Nevada of California north to Washington. It is also known from British Columbia, where there is an occurrence in the mountains above the Okanagan Valley. and another in the mountains near Harrison Lake.
Where it grows
P. lemmonii grows in mountainous habitat on ultramafic rock substrates, almost always in serpentine soils or among serpentine rocks. Though it grows in very restricted areas, P. lemmonii can be locally very abundant.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Polystichum lemmonii 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.