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Swamp Water Fern

Telmatoblechnum indicum

Swamp Water Fern
Photo: Poyt448 Peter Woodard, CC BY-SA 3.0

Swamp water fern is a rhizomatous fern that grows in wet, swampy places, often in sandy soil. It is best kept consistently moist and warm, which makes it suited to bog gardens, pond margins or humid conditions.

Family
Blechnaceae (Blechn family)
Grows as
Fern
Light
Part shade, Bright indirect
Water
Keep the soil or root zone consistently moist, or grow it standing in shallow water.
Soil
Moist, sandy or peaty, humus-rich mix that drains a little but never dries out.
Temperature
18–30 °C; protect below 10 °C
How easy
Moderate
Native range
Indo-China to SW. Pacific
Climate
wet tropical

About

Telmatoblechnum indicum (many synonyms including Blechnum indicum) or the swamp water fern is often seen growing on sandy soils in swampy areas. The specific epithet indicum is from Latin, revealing this plant was first collected in the East Indies (Java). Indigenous Australians used the starchy rhizome as food.

This plant was collected with another swamp fern Cyclosorus interruptus by Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander at Botany Bay in 1770.

Other Telmatoblechnum plants

Toothed Midsorus Fern · Telmatoblechnum

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Telmatoblechnum indicum 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.

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