Asplenium rutifolium(P.J.Bergius) Kunze

WFO wfo-0001110840 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Justin Ponder
fig. a Justin Ponder, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-29 / obs. 192150323
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. b Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 174123920
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Justin Ponder
fig. c Justin Ponder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 140356561
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. d Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131059009
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. e Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 107920668
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Di Turner
fig. f Di Turner, CC0 1.0 / obs. 97911758
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Jeremy Gilmore
fig. g Jeremy Gilmore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59379623
Asplenium rutifolium, photographed by Jeremy Gilmore
fig. h Jeremy Gilmore, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59339538

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 15 botanical countries

Regions where Asplenium rutifolium is native: Cape Provinces, Comoros, Eswatini, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe Cape ProvincesEswatiniKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesRwandaTanzaniaUgandaZimbabwe ComorosMauritiusRéunion
Native distribution of Asplenium rutifolium, 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
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
Comoros COM
Eswatini SWZ
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
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 389 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.4 °C 10.0 °C 12.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.3 °C 24.1 °C 27.6 °C
Annual rainfall 576 mm 848 mm 1,240 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 42 mm 128 mm 214 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 389 research-grade observations of Asplenium rutifolium 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 28 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.

  • Adiantum achilleifolium Lam.
  • Adiantum borbonicum Jacq.
  • Asplenium achilleifolium (Lam.) C.Chr.
  • Asplenium achilleifolium var. bipinnatum (Forssk.) C.Chr.
  • Asplenium bipinnatum (Forssk.) C.Chr. & Hieron.
  • Asplenium bipinnatum (Forssk.) C.Chr.
  • Asplenium bipinnatum var. stans (Bory) Bonap.
  • Asplenium borbonicum Hook.
  • Asplenium distichum Mett.; Salom.
  • Asplenium furcatum L.f.
  • Asplenium linearilobum Peter
  • Asplenium rutifolium var. bipinnatum (Forssk.) Schelpe
  • Asplenium stans Kunze
  • Asplenium strangeanum Pic.Serm.
  • Asplenium subdigitatum Mett.
  • Caenopteris disticha Spreng.
  • Caenopteris furcata Berg.
  • Caenopteris palmata Spreng.
  • Caenopteris rutaefolia Bergius
  • Caenopteris rutifolia P.J.Bergius
  • Ceterach rutifolium Mett.
  • Darea disticha Kaulf.
  • Darea furcata (P.J.Bergius) Willd.
  • Darea furcata (P.J.Bergius) Willd.

and 4 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. 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.