The rare, tetraploid maidenhair spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes subsp. quadrivalens) has only recently been rediscovered in New Zealand. Several people have contacted me with possible additional sightings. As described by the Scoop website, Jack Ritchie had a maidenhair spleenwort self-sow on a rock used to construct a water feature in hisRead more
The maidenhair spleenwort is a spleenwort fern (Asplenium) that (supposedly) looks like a maidenhair fern (Adiantum, see below). The 600 or so of the world’s spleenworts are characterised by having their reproductive structures in lines away from the margins of their fronds’ undersides. Two maidenhair spleenworts occur in New Zealand.Read more
I’m one of the Botany Curators at Te Papa, and ferns are one of my specialties. New Zealand has about 200 native ferns, and some of them are very rare. We recently rediscovered one rare fern that had been ‘lost’. I was beginning to wonder if it had become extinct,Read more
