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 18 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| China North-Central | CHN | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China South-Central | CHC | |
| China Southeast | CHS | |
| Hainan | CHH | |
| Japan | JAP | |
| Korea | KOR | |
| Manchuria | CHM | |
| Nansei-shoto | NNS | |
| Taiwan | TAI | |
| Tibet | CHT | |
| Assam | ASS | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Cambodia | CBD | |
| East Himalaya | EHM | |
| Laos | LAO | |
| Myanmar | MYA | |
| Nepal | NEP | |
| Thailand | THA | |
| Vietnam | VIE |
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 1,385 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 1.8 °C | 9.4 °C | 13.8 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 20.5 °C | 27.9 °C | 31.2 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,949 mm | 3,260 mm | 4,616 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 121 mm | 270 mm | 759 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 1,385 research-grade observations of Pyrrosia lingua 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 19 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 lingua Thunb.
- Craspedaria chinensis Link
- Cyclophorus bodinieri H.Lév.
- Cyclophorus lingua (Thunb.) Desv.
- Cyclophorus lingua var. angustifrons Hayata
- Cyclophorus lingua var. attenuata Rosenst.
- Cyclophorus martini (Christ) C.Chr.
- Cyclophorus taiwanensis (Christ) C.Chr.
- Niphobolus lingua (Thunb.) Spreng.
- Niphobolus lingua (Thunb.) Spreng.
- Niphobolus martini Christ
- Niphobolus sinensis Loudon
- Polycampium lingua (Thunb.) C.Presl
- Polypodium lingua (Thunb.) Sw.
- Polypodium taiwanense Christ
- Pyrrosia caudifrons Ching, Boufford & K.H.Shing
- Pyrrosia lingua var. lingua
- Pyrrosia martini (Christ) Ching
- Pyrrosia medogensis Ching & S.K.Wu
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.