The warmer months are, in many respects, the ideal time for enjoying nature, including connecting with the amazing diversity of plants around us. This time last year, Curator Botany Leon Perrie was traversing the country to get the final photos for the fern guidebook he co-authored with Patrick Brownsey.
Ferns are prominent throughout much of Aotearoa New Zealand, and together with lycophytes* comprise about 8% of the indigenous vascular flora. As well as being cultural and commercial icons, ferns are good to connect with and learn about: they are generally recognisable as a group and their numbers are enough to be rewardingly challenging without being overwhelming.
The Identification Guide to the Ferns and Lycophytes of Aotearoa New Zealand profiles 201 species, with their distinguishing features, photos, and distribution maps. These species are the most likely to be encountered (or the most interesting), both indigenous and weedy introduced species. It builds on our work for the Ferns and Lycophytes series of the Flora of New Zealand, with that technical account repackaged to be more accessible.
The Identification Guide draws on photos that I’ve been gathering for two decades, but I was missing images for a few species and features. The summer of 2023–2024 was my last chance to get these before the book was published.
Fern photography
By this trip, I was using my old Panasonic Lumix for ‘habitat’ photos and an Olympus Tough for close-ups. The Tough is also waterproof…
Southern swimming
Pillwort, Pilularia novae-hollandiae looks little like a typical fern. It has narrowly cylindrical leaves that are undivided and a few centimetres long. It grows in lakes and tarns, so I went snorkelling in a couple of South Island lakes for a habitat photo. We also found some exposed at a lake’s edge, which made it easier to get close-ups.
Swimming in South Island lakes was also required to photograph the alpine quillwort, Isoetes alpina.
Southward to Bluff
We went as far south as near Bluff, to get photos of Asplenium scleroprium. It otherwise occurs around Stewart Island, the Auckland Islands, Snares Island, and Chatham Islands.
Previous research by us has shown this species is derived from a hybridisation event coupled with chromosome doubling between the makawe (hanging spleenwort), Asplenium flaccidum, and the paranako (shore spleenwort), Asplenium obtusatum.
Weedy ferns
I took the opportunity while in the South Island to get better photographs of a couple of weedy ferns. Ferns have a reputation as being ‘delicate’, but many are tough competitors. As the Identification Guide says, some introduced exotic species “have become problematic weeds, displacing indigenous species, curtailing economic productivity, and even transforming environments”. A major goal for the Identification Guide is to facilitate the recognition of weedy ferns.
Northward
I was also after photos from ferns growing in the north. Local botanist Bill Campbell helped us find marsh fern, Thelypteris confluens growing in a wetland behind dunes in Northland.
Notogrammitis rawlingsii is potentially more common than appreciated, but it might be mistaken for other Notogrammitis strap ferns without a close look. The clusters of spore-producing capsules are fringed by reddish hairs. “Eyelash-like” is how these were described by local botanist Maureen Young, who helped us locate this species.
More on the Identification Guide
- Find more details about the book on its page Identification Guide to the Ferns and Lycophytes of Aotearoa New Zealand
- View a sample of the book’s pages Identification Guide to the Ferns and Lycophytes of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Read an interview with Leon Perrie about the book.
Best wishes for a summer engaging with nature. Next time you’re out and about, perhaps see how many different kinds of ferns you can spot.
*What are lycophytes?
Lycophytes are one of the 6 principal living groups of land plants, alongside liverworts, hornworts, mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Hundreds of millions of years ago, lycophytes grew as trees and dominated forests, but today they are a comparatively small group of species of generally small size. They include genera such as Lycopodium and Selaginella.
Lycophytes, ferns, and seed plants are collectively known as vascular plants because they have ‘plumbing’ of specialised cells for conveying water and nutrients around their bodies. Lycophytes generally have small leaves with a single unbranched vein which distinguishes them from ferns that generally have bigger leaves with branching veins. The study of lycophytes is usually tacked on to the study of ferns, although ferns are more closely related to seed plants.
Leon, Pilularia: I admire your cautionary caption ‘likely pillwort’ in photo with Isoetes. In the absence of koru-coils of young tips, I think you could be more confident based on the fronds being spaced, quite evenly, along hidden rhizomes, not quite erect or straight and with a slight taper. Other contenders: Juncus pusillus would have less straight lvs , more that one at each node; Eleocharis pusilla more clumped, finer strict culms.