Blechnum australeL.

WFO wfo-0001108447 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Blechnum australe, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-10-23 / obs. 165773327
Blechnum australe, photographed by linkie
fig. b linkie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 97907282
Blechnum australe, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 80503854
Blechnum australe, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 16013329
Blechnum australe, photographed by Paul Hoekman
fig. e Paul Hoekman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 119965124
Blechnum australe, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. f Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156446997
Blechnum australe, photographed by Dave Richardson
fig. g Dave Richardson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145335990
Blechnum australe, photographed by linkie
fig. h linkie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 97692475

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Blechnum australe is native: Ascension, Cape Provinces, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Tristan da Cunha Cape ProvincesFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMadagascarNamibiaNorthern ProvincesTanzaniaZimbabwe AscensionRéunionTristan da Cunha
Native distribution of Blechnum australe, 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
Ascension ASC AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Madagascar MDG
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Tanzania TAN
Zimbabwe ZIM
Tristan da Cunha TDC ANTARCTICA

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 169 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.2 °C 8.1 °C 11.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.4 °C 24.0 °C 27.5 °C
Annual rainfall 542 mm 1,024 mm 2,678 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 40 mm 104 mm 259 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 169 research-grade observations of Blechnum australe 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 22 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.

  • Blechnopteris australis (L.) Trevis.
  • Blechnum australe f. genuina Hieron.
  • Blechnum australe f. glanduliferum Schelpe
  • Blechnum australe subsp. australe
  • Blechnum australe var. aberrans N.C.Anthony & Schelpe
  • Blechnum australe var. australe
  • Blechnum blumei T.Moore
  • Blechnum rigidum Sw.
  • Blechnum tricuspe Kaulf. ex Sieb.
  • Lomaria australis Lowe
  • Lomaria australis (L.) Link
  • Lomaria blechnoides Desv.
  • Lomaria minor Link
  • Lomaria pumila Kaulf.
  • Lomaria rigida (Sw.) Fée
  • Mesothema australe (L.) C.Presl
  • Mesothema javanicum C.Presl
  • Mesothema rigidum (Sw.) C.Presl
  • Spicanta australis (L.) Kuntze
  • Struthiopteris australis (L.) Trevis.
  • Struthiopteris javanica Trevis.
  • Struthiopteris rigida (Sw.) Trevis.

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.