General Landscape Uses:
Primarily recommended for natural landscapes and habitat restorations.
Ecological Restoration Notes: Limited to exposed moist limestone in rockland hammocks with constantly high humidity. The lowered water table in South Florida make this a difficult species to incorporate into restoration projects.
Availability:
Grown by enthusiasts.
Description: Small herbaceous fern.
Dimensions: Pendent, the leaves about 2-6 inches in length. Spreading across the limestone and forming small or sometimes large colonies.
Growth Rate: Slow.
Range:
Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, and disjust to Volusia County where first collected in 2008; West Indies and Central America. Extremely rare north of the Miami River.
Map of select IRC data from peninsular Florida.
Map of ZIP codes with habitat recommendations from the Monroe County Keys north to Martin and Charlotte counties.
Habitats: Rockland hammocks.
Soils: Moist limestone rock, with or without an accumulation of humusy material.
Nutritional Requirements: Moderate; can grow in nutrient poor soils, but needs some organic content to thrive.
Salt Water Tolerance: Low; does not tolerate flooding by salt or brackish water.
Salt Wind Tolerance: Low; salt wind may burn the leaves.
Drought Tolerance: Low; requires moist to wet soils and is intolerant of long periods of drought.
Light Requirements: Light shade to moderate shade.
Flower Color: N/A.
Flower Characteristics: There are no flowers; the plants reproduce by spores.
Flowering Season: All year.
Fruit: Inconspicuous spores.
Horticultural Notes: Can be grown from spores. Very difficult to grow.
Comments: It is listed as endangered by the state of Florida. See also Florida Natural Areas Inventory's
Field Guide to the Rare Plants of Florida page (Chafin 2000).
