Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 14 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Caroline Is. | CRL | PACIFIC |
| Cook Is. | COO | |
| Fiji | FIJ | |
| Marianas | MRN | |
| Marquesas | MRQ | |
| New Caledonia | NWC | |
| Pitcairn Is. | PIT | |
| Samoa | SAM | |
| Society Is. | SCI | |
| Tonga | TON | |
| Tubuai Is. | TUB | |
| Vanuatu | VAN | |
| Solomon Is. | SOL | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Kermadec Is. | KER | AUSTRALASIA |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 816 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 4.7 °C | 12.2 °C | 15.3 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 24.2 °C | 29.1 °C | 30.9 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,631 mm | 2,758 mm | 3,770 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 107 mm | 180 mm | 555 mm |
It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 816 research-grade observations of Arachniodes aristata that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 14 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Aspidium aristatum (G.Forst.) Sw.
- Aspidium hamiltonianum Wall.
- Byrsopteris aristata (G.Forst.) Morton
- Dryopteris aristata (G.Forst.) Kuntze
- Lastrea aristata (G.Forst.) T.Moore
- Nephrodium aristatum (G.Forst.) C.Presl
- Polypodium aristatum G.Forst.
- Polystichopsis aristata (G.Forst.) Holttum
- Polystichopsis aristata (G.Forst.) Tagawa
- Polystichum aculeatum var. samoense Luerss.
- Polystichum aristatum (G.Forst.) C.Presl
- Polystichum lobatum var. aristatum (Hook.f. ) C.Chr.
- Polystichum lobatum var. aristatum (G.Forst.) C.Chr.
- Rumohra aristata (G.Forst.) Ching
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.