326 articles
Acrostichum
Acrostichum (mangrove fern, leather fern) is a pantropical genus of four large halophytic ferns in Pteridaceae growing in brackish mangrove swamps, with A. aureum, A. danaeifolium, A. speciosum, and A. urvillei as accepted species.
Adiantum
Adiantum, the maidenhair ferns, is a cosmopolitan fern genus in Pteridaceae with 242 accepted species, shiny black stalks, fan-shaped frond segments, and spores under reflexed false indusia.
Adiantum capillus-veneris
Adiantum capillus-veneris, the southern maidenhair or Venus-hair fern, is a cosmopolitan Pteridaceae fern with black stipes and fan-shaped leaflets, grown ornamentally and used in traditional medicine.
Aglaomorpha (plant)
Aglaomorpha Schott, a genus of large tropical humus-collecting ferns in Polypodiaceae from Asia and Malesia, now treated as a rejected name synonymized under Drynaria; includes A. coronans, a 2 m houseplant fern.
Air fern
The air fern, also sold as the Neptune Plant, is a decorative ornament made from the dried, dyed skeleton of a marine animal, not a plant.
Alsophila australis
Alsophila australis (rough tree fern, formerly Cyathea australis) is an Australian tree fern of Cyatheaceae, native to eastern and southeastern Australia, with a trunk to 10 m, tripinnate fronds to 3.5 m, and frequent horticultural confusion with Cyathea cooperi.
Alsophila bryophila
Alsophila bryophila (syn. Cyathea bryophila), helecho gigante de la sierra, a slow-growing tree fern endemic to Puerto Rico's montane forests at 700-1325 m, with an erect trunk to 7 m, fronds to 2 m, and growth of about 5 cm per year.
Alsophila cunninghamii
Alsophila cunninghamii (slender tree fern, gully tree fern, pūnui; basionym Cyathea cunninghamii) is a Cyatheaceae tree fern with a trunk to 20 m, native to southeastern Australia and New Zealand, in wet forest gullies; NZTCS Not Threatened.
Alsophila cuspidata
Alsophila cuspidata (Kunze) D.S.Conant, basionym Cyathea cuspidata Kunze, is a scaly tree fern (Cyatheaceae) from Nicaragua to southern tropical America, wet tropical biome, used for food, CITES Appendix II.
Alsophila dregei
Alsophila dregei (syn. Cyathea dregei), the grassland tree fern, is a Cyatheaceae tree fern of streambanks in African montane grassland and Madagascar, 3–7 m tall, Least Concern but protected and CITES Appendix II listed.
Alsophila manniana
Alsophila manniana (spiny tree fern, syn. Cyathea manniana Hook. 1865), Africa's largest tree fern, grows streamside in wet montane tropical Africa to over 12 m, spreads by stolons, reproduces rarely by spores, least concern.
Alsophila of Africa and the Indian Ocean islands
The Alsophila tree ferns of Africa and the Indian Ocean islands grow on mainland Africa, Madagascar, the Comoros, Seychelles, and Mascarenes, with most taxa endemic to Madagascar.
Alsophila of Malesia and New Guinea
Alsophila of Malesia and New Guinea is the group of scaly tree ferns of the genus Alsophila native to the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, and New Guinea.
Alsophila of South and Southeast Asia
Alsophila of South and Southeast Asia are tree ferns of the family Cyatheaceae, ranging from India and the Himalaya through southern China to mainland Southeast Asia.
Alsophila smithii
Alsophila smithii (kātote, soft tree fern; formerly Cyathea smithii) is a small New Zealand endemic tree fern of Cyatheaceae with soft 2.5 m fronds, a skirt of dead stipes, trunks to 8 m, and Not Threatened status.
Alsophila spinulosa
Alsophila spinulosa (syn. Cyathea spinulosa), the spiny tree fern of Cyatheaceae, native from the Indian subcontinent to East Asia; an endangered Jurassic relict with 6 m trunks, protected as a national second-class plant in China.
Amauropelta
Amauropelta Kunze, marsh fern genus of Thelypteridaceae with about 215 species, mostly Neotropical; formerly a subgenus of Thelypteris, restored to genus rank after 2015 molecular phylogenetic work.
Amauropelta noveboracensis
Amauropelta noveboracensis, New York fern (thélyptère de New York), a deciduous Thelypteridaceae fern of eastern North America and the Russian Far East; fronds taper at both ends, 2n=54, moved from Thelypteris to Amauropelta in 2021.
American Fern Journal
American Fern Journal: quarterly peer-reviewed botany journal of the American Fern Society, published since 1910, covering ferns and seed-free vascular plants; ISSN 0002-8444, archived on JSTOR, BioOne, and BHL.
American Fern Society
American Fern Society (AFS), founded 1893, international society for fern and lycophyte study; publishes the American Fern Journal (since 1910) and Fiddlehead Forum, runs a spore exchange and Fern Forays; over 500 members; distinct from the American Filtration and Separations Society and fernsociety.com.
Antheridiogen
Antheridiogen (AG, A-substanz) is a gibberellin-like pheromone from mature female fern gametophytes that turns nearby young gametophytes precociously male; discovered by Döpp in 1950, with types A, B, and C across fern families.
Apogamy and apospory in ferns
Apogamy and apospory in ferns bypass the normal life cycle: apogamy grows a sporophyte from the gametophyte without fertilization, and apospory grows a gametophyte without spores.
Aquatic and wetland ferns
Aquatic and wetland ferns include free-floating genera such as Salvinia and Azolla and the rooted water-clover Marsilea; some, like giant salvinia, double their biomass in days and become serious invasive weeds.
Aquatic fern
Aquatic ferns are ferns of the order Salviniales that float on or root in fresh water, the only heterosporous ferns, with roughly 70 species in two families.
Asparagus aethiopicus
Asparagus aethiopicus, Sprenger's asparagus or asparagus fern, is a South African Asparagaceae perennial, long misnamed A. densiflorus or A. sprengeri, widely cultivated as an ornamental and invasive in Florida and Australia.
Asparagus setaceus
Asparagus setaceus (asparagus fern, lace fern, plumosa fern, formerly Asparagus plumosus) is a spiny climbing Asparagaceae plant from Ethiopia to South Africa, not a true fern; grown as a houseplant and florist foliage, with toxic berries and invasive status in several regions.
Aspleniaceae
Aspleniaceae, the spleenwort family, is a cosmopolitan fern family in Polypodiales with two genera, Asplenium (over 700 species) and Hymenasplenium (~30), clathrate scales, and elongate linear sori.
Asplenium
Asplenium, known as spleenworts, is a large genus of ferns in the family Aspleniaceae, first published by Linnaeus in 1753, with over 700 species worldwide.
Asplenium adiantum-nigrum
Asplenium adiantum-nigrum, black spleenwort, is a perennial Aspleniaceae fern with dark stipes and 2-3-pinnate fronds, an allotetraploid hybrid native to Eurasia, Africa, Macaronesia, western North America, and Hawaii.
Asplenium ceterach
Asplenium ceterach (Ceterach officinarum), the rustyback or scale fern, is a European–Macaronesian lithophytic spleenwort with rusty scales on the frond underside, resurrection-plant desiccation tolerance, 2n = 144 tetraploidy, and Least Concern status.