Asplenium laciniatumD.Don

variable spleenwort

WFO wfo-0001116299 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 7 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 7 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Asplenium laciniatum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-10-31 / obs. 169165106

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
04051438
Filed as
Asplenium laciniatum D.Don
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 36 botanical countries

Regions where Asplenium laciniatum is native: Cape Provinces, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Altay, Amur, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Khabarovsk, Korea, Manchuria, Primorye, Qinghai, Taiwan, Tibet, Yemen, Assam, East Himalaya, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya Cape ProvincesFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesTanzaniaUgandaZimbabweAltayAmurChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastInner MongoliaJapanKhabarovskManchuriaPrimoryeQinghaiTaiwanTibetYemenAssamEast HimalayaIndiaMyanmarNepalPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaThailandVietnamWest Himalaya Korea
Native distribution of Asplenium laciniatum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Primorye PRM
Qinghai CHQ
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
Yemen YEM
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 103 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.7 °C 1.3 °C 6.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.5 °C 19.5 °C 26.4 °C
Annual rainfall 663 mm 4,269 mm 4,917 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 35 mm 271 mm 345 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 103 research-grade observations of Asplenium laciniatum 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 44 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.

  • Anogramma fauriei (Christ) Christ
  • Asplenium argutum Ching
  • Asplenium borealichinense Ching & S.H.Wu
  • Asplenium chasei Viane & Reichst.
  • Asplenium chengkouense Ching ex H.S.Kung
  • Asplenium commixtum Ching
  • Asplenium conmixum Ching
  • Asplenium depauperatum
  • Asplenium fimbriatum Kunze
  • Asplenium fimbriatum var. leptophyllum Zenker ex Kunze
  • Asplenium hebeiense Ching & S.H.Wu
  • Asplenium hopehense Ching
  • Asplenium hopei Viane & Reichst.
  • Asplenium kansuense Ching
  • Asplenium kukkonenii Viane & Reichst.
  • Asplenium lacei Viane & Reichst.
  • Asplenium laciniatum var. laciniatum
  • Asplenium lankongense Ching
  • Asplenium mae Viane & Reichst.
  • Asplenium miyunense Ching & Z.R.Wang
  • Asplenium neovarians Ching
  • Asplenium parvulum
  • Asplenium paucijugum Ching
  • Asplenium propinquum Ching

and 20 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol ASVA4. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.