Myriopteris aurea(Poir.) Grusz & Windham

golden lipfern

WFO wfo-0001337787 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Humber Alberto
fig. a Humber Alberto, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 192660101
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. b Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 176636743
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Skjold Søndergaard
fig. c Skjold Søndergaard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156319329
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Arturo Castro Castro
fig. d Arturo Castro Castro, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180624973
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Andrés Ramírez-Barrera
fig. e Andrés Ramírez-Barrera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 144773626
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by José Belem Hernández Díaz
fig. f José Belem Hernández Díaz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 137462030
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. g Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 123026585
Myriopteris aurea, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. h Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 122693434

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 27 botanical countries

Regions where Myriopteris aurea is native: Arizona, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, New Mexico, Texas, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Belize, Bolivia, Chile North, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Galápagos, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Venezuela ArizonaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestNew MexicoTexasArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaChile NorthColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruVenezuela Galápagos
Native distribution of Myriopteris aurea, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Chile North CLN
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
Galápagos GAL
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Venezuela VEN
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
New Mexico NWM
Texas TEX

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 1,923 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.2 °C 4.4 °C 9.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.2 °C 24.2 °C 32.0 °C
Annual rainfall 457 mm 774 mm 1,244 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 21 mm 33 mm 69 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 1,923 research-grade observations of Myriopteris aurea 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 13 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 bonariense Willd.
  • Cheilanthes bonariensis (Willd.) Proctor
  • Cheilanthes ferruginea Willd.
  • Hemionitis bonariensis (Willd.) Christenh.
  • Notholaena aurea (Poir.) Desv.
  • Notholaena bonariensis C.Chr.
  • Notholaena chiapensis Rovirosa
  • Notholaena ferruginea (Willd. ex Link) Hook.
  • Notholaena rufa C.Presl
  • Notholaena rufa var. major C.Presl
  • Notholaena rufa var. minor C.Presl
  • Pellaea ferruginea Nees
  • Pteris aurea Poir.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CHBO5. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.