Athyrium anisopterumChrist

WFO wfo-0001117798 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-09 / obs. 173284259
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. b Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166809637
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. c Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173284297
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. d Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166809613
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173284213
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. f Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166809662
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Cheng-Tao Lin
fig. g Cheng-Tao Lin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45602082
Athyrium anisopterum, photographed by Cheng-Tao Lin
fig. h Cheng-Tao Lin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45602121

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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Athyrium anisopterum is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, Borneo, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastTaiwanTibetAssamBorneoEast HimalayaIndiaJawaMalayaMyanmarNepalPhilippinesSri LankaSumateraThailandVietnamWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Athyrium anisopterum, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Borneo BOR
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT

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 41 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.8 °C 2.8 °C 6.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.0 °C 19.9 °C 22.0 °C
Annual rainfall 2,956 mm 4,232 mm 4,967 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 111 mm 232 mm 325 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 41 research-grade observations of Athyrium anisopterum 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 10 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 fauriei var. elatius Christ
  • Asplenium macrocarpon var. atkinsonii Hook. & Baker
  • Athyrium heterosporum Y.T.Hsieh & Z.R.Wang
  • Athyrium kumaonicum Punetha
  • Athyrium membranifolium Ching
  • Athyrium woodsioides Christ
  • Dryopteris thysanocarpa Hayata
  • Lastrea membranacea Arn. ex Baker
  • Lastrea sparsa var. membranacea Arn. ex Bedd.
  • Nephrodium sparsum var. membranaceum Arn. ex C.B.Clarke

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.