China

A very rare member of this famously lustrous fern genus, this species is found only in two provinces of China. Possessed of delightfully round fronds that never fail to elicit cries of "that's a fern!", and that each with their glossy, pebbled texture look very much like fallen scales of some great dragon or dinosaur. The magic continues when the acrostichoid sporangia emerge, cloaking the entire back surface in what looks like fine black soot. Flora of China describes the rhizomes as long creeping but this hasn't been the case for us thus far as they have plodded along with small clumps with only a few new leaves at a time. We recently planted this out in our tufa wall and it already shows signs of increased vigor though so perhaps it just dislikes the confines of black plastic. Cold hardiness to be determined but we feel good about its chances in the PNW, a rocky substrate is desirable and a touch less moisture than most ferns.

Yet another of diverse and headachingly difficult to identify genus that love but doesn't love us back (at least taxonomically). The dark, opaque, and serrately margined rhizome scales have led us to believe it belongs in the section pseudovittaria where the publication helpfully states species delimitation is particularly difficult. Whatever the species it is an attractive small evergreen species that grows epiphytically in the wild and while spreading by rhizome tends to form a nice tight clump overall. The fronds start off broader and slightly twisted but become thin and much more upright as the sori develop. This has proved hardy for us thus far in the tufa wall housed in our collector's garden and has drawn the particular admiration of a few very knowledgeable local fern fanatics.

A Far Reaches Botanical Conservancy Offering