Leather fern facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Leather fern |
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| Genus: |
Rumohra
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| Species: |
adiantiformis
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The leather fern, also known as the leatherleaf fern, is a type of fern plant. It belongs to the wood fern family, called Dryopteridaceae. You can find this fern in many places around the world, especially in warm, tropical areas in the Southern Hemisphere.
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Other Names for the Leather Fern
People call the leather fern by a few other names too. These include the leathery shieldfern, iron fern, 7-weeks-fern, and climbing shield fern.
What the Leather Fern Looks Like
The leather fern is a bushy plant that stays green all year. It can grow up to 90 centimeters (about 3 feet) tall and wide. Its leaves, called fronds, are a shiny dark green.
How Leather Ferns Reproduce
If you look closely at the underside of the fronds, you'll see small, round bumps. These bumps are called sori (SOH-rye). Sori are like tiny clusters where the fern's spores are made. Spores are how ferns reproduce, similar to seeds in other plants.
Many of these sori have a protective cover called an indusium (in-DOO-zee-um). The main stems of the fronds, called stipes (STYPES), also have noticeable scales on them.
Where the Leather Fern Grows
The leather fern grows naturally in many different parts of the world. It is found in South America, the Caribbean islands, southern Africa, and islands in the Western Indian Ocean. You can also find it in Papua New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand.
Some of the specific countries where it grows include Brazil, Colombia, the Galápagos Islands, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and New Zealand.
How the Leather Fern Lives in Nature
The leather fern often grows alongside other plants in forests. For example, in the podocarp and broadleaf forests of Westland, New Zealand, it grows with plants like Ascarina lucida and Pseudopanax colensoi. This shows how different plants can live together in the same natural environment.
Growing Leather Ferns
People grow the leather fern for a few reasons. It's popular as an ornamental plant, which means it's grown for its beauty. It can be used as groundcover in gardens, covering the soil like a green carpet. It's also very important in floristry, which is the art of arranging flowers. The fronds are often used in flower bouquets and decorations.
Because it's a tropical plant, it doesn't like cold weather or frost very much. In places with cooler climates, like the UK, people usually grow it indoors as a houseplant. In the UK, it has even won an award called the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit because it's such a good plant to grow.
In Brazil, the leather fern is very important for the economy. Thousands of people earn money by collecting its fronds from the wild and selling them to florists for flower arrangements.
