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.
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 2 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | NSW | AUSTRALASIA |
| Queensland | QLD |
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 111 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 1.5 °C | 8.7 °C | 11.4 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.3 °C | 24.0 °C | 26.7 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 646 mm | 1,128 mm | 1,347 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 89 mm | 203 mm | 232 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 111 research-grade observations of Gleichenia rupestris 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 17 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.
- Calymella rupestris (R.Br.) Ching
- Gleichenia circinnata var. rupestris (R.Br.) Domin
- Gleichenia circinnata var. speluncae (R.Br.) Luerss.
- Gleichenia rupestris var. glaucescens C.K.Schneid.
- Gleichenia speluncae R.Br.
- Gleichenia speluncae var. glandulosa T.Moore
- Gleicheniastrum circinnatum var. glandulosm (T.Moore) Nakai
- Gleicheniastrum circinnatum var. glandulosum (T.Moore) Nakai
- Gleicheniastrum rupestre (R.Br.) C.Presl
- Gleicheniastrum rupestre var. glaucescens Nakai
- Gleicheniastrum speluncae (R.Br.) C.Presl
- Mertensia rupestris (R.Br.) Poir.
- Mertensia speluncae (R.Br.) Poir.
- Platyzoma rupestre Desv.
- Platyzoma speluncae (R.Br.) Desv.
- Pteris rupestris (R.Br.) Christenh.
- Pteris speluncae (R.Br.) Christenh.
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.
- 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.