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Sphaeropteris medullaris
Also called Sago Fern
A large tree fern up to about 20 m tall with a black, scaly trunk and very long arching fronds, native to the southwest Pacific including New Zealand. It is one of the fastest-growing tree ferns and grows best in moist, sheltered, humid conditions.
Sphaeropteris medullaris, synonym Cyathea medullaris, commonly known as mamaku or black tree fern, is a large tree fern up to 20 m (66 ft) tall with a trunk up to 20 cm diameter at breast height. It is distributed across the south-west Pacific from Fiji to Pitcairn Island and is a common plant found in forests of New Zealand.
Sphaeropteris medullaris will grow from fresh spores, but this is slow. Plants are easy to transplant when they are young. It is also possible to plant newly felled trunks which will generally sprout again, provided they are watered with care. They are hardy in various conditions once established. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit as an ornamental.
The species is found across many southwestern Pacific Ocean islands, including New Zealand, Fiji, the Marquesas Islands, Tahiti, the Austral Islands, and Pitcairn Island. It is not present in the Kermadec Islands.
In traditional Māori culture, the drooping fronds of Sphaeropteris medullaris is associated with grief and sorrow. Traditional stories describe Mamaku and Toroa (the albatross) as human lovers who would argue and bicker. Their arguing angered the gods, who turned Toroa into an albatross, and Mamaku into a tree fern.
Scaly tree fern · Norfolk Tree Fern · Sphaeropteris robusta · Sphaeropteris
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Sphaeropteris medullaris 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.
