Woodwardia

Sporelings of the Mexican Chain Fern originally introduced from the mountains near Oaxaca. A rarely seen beautiful species surviving many years in a Seattle garden. The same garden has a glorious container of this which overwinters frost-free in the sunroom where it not only survives but thrives. Thanks to Jeanette Kunnen for sharing. These are young plants but if we wait, they will all be sold here at the nursery and they need to get out into broader distribution. Just a few.

Crazy fern that takes away the need to fuss of growing this from spore, as it makes a multitudinous panoply of ready-to-go plantlets on the leaves that will soon have you owning the corner in your 'hood dealing in fern babies. Remember, if it's a kid, the first one is free. Warmer gardens or indoors, mulch protect in zone 8 winters.This is often seen as W. orientalis in the trade but the pterido-prophets say the signs point to prolifer. 

From Guizhou Province comes this collection of Chain Fern where it grew in association with Rhododendron irroratum and Viburnum cylindricum among other goodies. An awesome fern in the garden with fronds that can be 4'-7' long which arch low over the ground and which are salmon colored as they are just unfurling. This is a rare wild collection and one we propagate quite slowly by the 1-3 bulbils that accompany each imposing frond and so have a very limited number each year. Semi-evergreen in zone 7 where mulching the crown well in winter is advised to evergreen in warmer zones. Likes it moist. Best one we ever saw was at Linda Cochran's famed old garden on Bainbridge Island where she had a huge specimen luxuriating in her rich moist compost at the foot of an imposing bamboo clump.

Our China collection of this most remarkable species. Favoring rich, moist areas which is required to pump up the nearly 6' in length frond volume. These fronds extend out laxly horizontally which assists in their asexual reproduction from plantlets developing from the little furry balls - careful! - at frond's end. Mulch crown in cold winters.

Our China collection of this most remarkable species. Favoring rich, moist areas which is required to pump up the nearly 6' in length frond volume. These fronds extend out laxly horizontally which assists in their asexual reproduction from plantlets developing from the little furry balls - careful! - at frond's end. Mulch crown in cold winters.

We have just a handful of this choice form of the species in which the pinnae are distinctly undulated adding yet another layer of tasteful complexity to a species already awash in attributes. It really isn't fair to be born with gorgeous 6'-7' fronds but do you have to flaunt undulation too? Well, yes.