Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 81 botanical countries
Not drawn on the map: Kazan-retto, Easter Is., Gilbert Is., Santa Cruz Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.
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 1,315 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 11.9 °C | 17.3 °C | 25.0 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 25.4 °C | 27.9 °C | 30.8 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 959 mm | 2,230 mm | 4,147 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 65 mm | 162 mm | 648 mm |
It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,315 research-grade observations of Microsorum scolopendria 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 34 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.
- Acrostichum obtusifolium Willd.
- Chrysopteris longipes Link
- Chrysopteris peltidea Link
- Chrysopteris phymatodes Link
- Chrysopteris terminalis Link
- Drynaria longipes J.Sm.
- Drynaria phymatodes Fée
- Drynaria vulgaris J.Sm.
- Microsorum alternifolium (Willd.) Copel.
- Phymatodes banerjiana S.Pal & N.Pal
- Phymatodes longipes J.Sm.
- Phymatodes peltidea J.Sm.
- Phymatodes scolopendria (Burm.f.) Ching
- Phymatodes terminalis J.Sm.
- Phymatodes vulgaris C.Presl
- Phymatosorus banerjianus (Pal & Pal) Pic.Serm.
- Phymatosorus scolopendria (Burm.f.) Pic.Serm.
- Pleopeltis phymatodes (L.) T.Moore
- Pleopeltis phymatodes (L.) Bedd.
- Pleopeltis schneideri Alderw.
- Polypodium alternifolium (Willd.) Link
- Polypodium alternifolium Willd.
- Polypodium fuentesii Hicken
- Polypodium immersum Vahl
and 10 more.
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.
- USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PHSC14. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.