326 articles
Asplenium hybrids
Asplenium hybrids, crosses between spleenwort species (Asplenium, Aspleniaceae), are frequent and often sterile with aborted spores; examples include A. × heufleri and A. × shikokianum, and chromosome doubling of hybrids has produced allotetraploid species such as A. majoricum, sometimes recurrently.
Asplenium nidus
Asplenium nidus, the bird's nest fern (Neottopteris nidus), is a large tropical epiphytic fern of Aspleniaceae with shiny strap-shaped fronds up to 200 cm, native from Madagascar and Asia to Australia and the Pacific, least concern, and a popular ornamental.
Asplenium pinnatifidum
Asplenium pinnatifidum, lobed spleenwort, is an eastern North American allotetraploid fern (2n=144) from A. montanum × rhizophyllum, growing on acidic sandstone cliffs and producing hybrids ×trudellii, ×gravesii, ×kentuckiense, and ×herb-wagneri.
Asplenium platyneuron
Asplenium platyneuron (ebony spleenwort) is an evergreen spleenwort fern of eastern North America and southern Africa, with once-pinnate dark-rachised fronds, dimorphic fertile and sterile leaves, 2n=72, and a role as diploid progenitor of Appalachian Asplenium hybrids.
Asplenium rhizophyllum
Asplenium rhizophyllum, walking fern (doradille ambulante), a small evergreen spleenwort of eastern North America whose leaf tips root and form new plants; grows on mossy limestone, 2n=72, parent of A. ebenoides and A. pinnatifidum.
Asplenium trichomanes
Asplenium trichomanes, maidenhair spleenwort, is a small evergreen rock fern of the Aspleniaceae, described by Linnaeus in 1753, with dark brown stipes, once-pinnate fronds, diploid 2n=72 and tetraploid 2n=144 cytotypes, and a G5/LC conservation status.
Athyriaceae
Athyriaceae, the lady fern family, is a family of terrestrial ferns with elongated sori along the veins, comprising Athyrium, Deparia, and Diplazium, with about 650 species.
Athyrium
Athyrium (ladyfern) is a cosmopolitan fern genus of about 160-220 species in Athyriaceae, centered in temperate Asia; type species Athyrium filix-femina, the common ladyfern, with horseshoe-shaped sori and x=40.
Athyrium filix-femina
Athyrium filix-femina, the lady fern, is a deciduous circumboreal fern of Athyriaceae with bipinnate 60–120 cm fronds and kidney-shaped sori; named by Roth in 1799 from Linnaeus's Polypodium filix-femina, with hundreds of garden cultivars.
Athyrium niponicum
Athyrium niponicum, the Japanese painted fern, is an east Asian perennial fern (basionym Asplenium niponicum, 1865), native from the E. Himalaya to the Russian Far East; var. pictum is a silver-fronded shade garden plant, sometimes placed in Anisocampium.
Athyrium yokoscense
Athyrium yokoscense (Japanese metal-tolerant lady fern, Athyriaceae/Aspleniaceae) is an East Asian perennial fern from Japan, Korea, China, and the Russian Far East, a cadmium hyperaccumulator that also tolerates and accumulates arsenic, copper, lead, and zinc on mine soils.
Austral and tropical clubmoss segregate genera
The austral and tropical clubmoss segregate genera are southern-hemisphere and tropical clubmoss lineages, including Austrolycopodium and Lateristachys, carved out of the broadly defined genus Lycopodium.
Austroblechnum
Austroblechnum is a genus of dimorphic ferns in Blechnaceae, split from Blechnum in 2016 by Gasper et al.; its spores have a distinctive nonfolded, smooth or granulate perine, mainly Southern Hemisphere species.
Azolla
Azolla (mosquito fern, water fern) is a genus of small floating freshwater ferns in Salviniaceae hosting the nitrogen-fixing cyanobiont Nostoc azollae in leaf cavities; used as a rice biofertilizer and livestock feed, invasive where introduced, and famous for Eocene Arctic fossil blooms.
Azolla pinnata
Azolla pinnata (feathered mosquitofern, water velvet) is a small floating aquatic fern in Salviniaceae with Anabaena azollae in its leaves, used as a rice biofertilizer and feed, but a U.S. federal noxious weed established in Florida.
Belvisia
Belvisia is a small genus of tropical Polypodiaceae ferns with a narrow, tail-like fertile spike at the frond apex, ranging from tropical Africa to Polynesia and Australia.
Benmore Botanic Garden
Benmore Botanic Garden, near Dunoon in Argyll, is a 120-acre mountainside garden of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, RBGE's first Regional Garden (1929), known for its 1863 Redwood Avenue, 300 rhododendron species, Victorian Fernery, and Golden Gates.
Biomineralization
Biomineralization is the process by which living organisms produce minerals to stiffen tissues, defend against enemies, or store material; in plants it is mostly silica deposited as phytoliths.
Bird's-nest fern and crocodile fern as houseplants
The bird's-nest fern (Asplenium nidus) and crocodile fern (Microsorum musifolium) are tropical ferns grown as houseplants for their architectural foliage, requiring shade, humidity, and careful watering to avoid crown rot.
Blechnaceae
Blechnaceae, the blechnoid fern family (Polypodiales, eupolypods II), has about 250-265 species, mostly in Blechnum, centered in Australasia and the Neotropics; molecular work showed Blechnum polyphyletic, prompting Telmatoblechnum and a 24-genus classification.
Bracken
Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum), also called brake fern, is a toxic perennial fern found on every continent except Antarctica, with fronds up to 3 m, rhizomes living 70 years, and control by asulam or repeated cutting.
British Pteridological Society
British Pteridological Society (BPS), UK charity founded 1891 in the Lake District for ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, and quillworts; publishes Fern Gazette, Bulletin, Pteridologist; ICRA for Polypodium; patron King Charles III.
Calamites
Calamites is a genus of extinct tree-like horsetails, related to modern Equisetum, that co-dominated the swamp forests of the Carboniferous Period some 300 million years ago.
Calochlaena
Calochlaena (false bracken), a genus of five terrestrial creeping fern species in Cyatheales, native from Malesia to the SW. Pacific; published by Turner & White in 1988, formerly Culcita subg. Calochlaena.
Cheilanthes
Cheilanthes, the lip ferns, is a genus of xerophytic Pteridaceae ferns with marginal sori covered by lip-like leaf margins. Once over 150 species, it proved polyphyletic; Myriopteris was resurrected in 2013 and recent classifications synonymize Cheilanthes.
Cheilanthoideae
Cheilanthoideae, the cheilanthoid or lip ferns, a xeric-adapted subfamily of Pteridaceae with about 500 species in seven lineages; hemionitids reclassified into 22 monophyletic genera in 2025.
Christella
Christella H.Lév. (1915), a fern genus of Thelypteridaceae, about 66-70 species of Old World tropical lowland wet forests, distinguished by unicellular sporangial-stalk hairs and goniopteroid venation; type C. parasitica; fossils known from Tibet and Yunnan.
Cibotium
Cibotium, sole genus of the tree-fern family Cibotiaceae (established 1820), about 9-12 species in Asia, Hawaii, and Central America; hairy trunks, two-lobed indusia; C. barometz is the medicinal golden chicken fern on CITES Appendix II.
Clubmoss ecology and conservation
Clubmoss ecology and conservation describes the habitat needs, slow reproduction, threats, and legal protection of clubmosses, spore-producing vascular plants of forest floors, bogs, and open acidic habitats.
Clubmoss morphology and life cycle
Clubmosses are spore-producing vascular plants of Lycopodiophyta that resemble mosses, with single-veined microphylls, cone-like strobili, and a dominant sporophyte generation; their tree ancestors formed coal about 300 million years ago.