House holly-fern, better known in the US as Japanese holly fern, is an East Asian evergreen fern with glossy, leathery leaflets shaped a bit like holly leaves. It's a popular shade plant in Southern gardens and a common houseplant, and it has become established in the wild in parts of North America, including Florida.
Appearance
- Appearance
- Round spore clusters, each under a round cover, are scattered over the underside of the leaflets.
- Growth form
- A clump-forming evergreen perennial fern about 1.5–2 ft (45–60 cm) tall and 2–3 ft (60–90 cm) wide.
- Leaves
- Fronds reach about 2 ft (60 cm), with several pairs of shiny, dark green, leathery leaflets that curve forward like a sickle.
Look-alikes
Fortune's holly fernCyrtomium fortunei
Fortune's holly fern has thinner, matte, yellow-green leaflets that are narrower and more numerous (usually more than 10 pairs). Japanese holly fern's leaflets are thicker, darker, and glossy.
Why they get mixed upBoth are holly ferns in the same genus with similar leaf shapes.
Where it lives
- Typical habitats
- Coastal cliffs
- Rocky slopes
- Stream banks
- Shade gardens
- Range
- Native to eastern Asia, including Japan, Korea, and China. In the US it has become established in the wild in places; in Florida it has been recorded in about 10 counties.
- Preferred conditions
- In the wild it grows in crevices of coastal cliffs, on rocky slopes, and along streams where moisture is steady.
Growing it
- Care
- Hardy in USDA zones 7–10 and grown in shade or part shade in moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil. Where winters are too cold it's kept as a houseplant. Deer and rabbits seldom bother it.
- Propagation
- Gardeners usually divide the clump; it can also be grown from spores.
Name and classification
- Varieties and forms
- 'Rochfordianum' is a widely sold cultivar with glossy, holly-like leaflets in a vase-shaped clump.
Conservation
- IUCN Red List
- NENot EvaluatedNot yet assessed
- Status
- Outside Asia it has become established in the wild in parts of North America, Mediterranean Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand. In Florida it is assessed as not a problem species.
More species to explore
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