Black-stem Spleenwort
Asplenium resiliens
Black-stem spleenwort is a small evergreen fern of limestone, growing out of crevices in cliff faces, sinkholes and old mortared walls almost never in soil, and it is one of the few ferns that actively requires alkaline rock. Its fronds are narrow ladders, divided once into small oblong segments set in neat opposite pairs along a hard, wiry, near-black stalk that stays glossy year round. It reproduces without sex: the spores are produced apogamously, so every plant on a rock face is effectively a clone, which is part of how it holds isolated outcrops far from any other population. It stays under a foot and forms a tight tuft rather than spreading. The fronds persist through winter, going a little dull but not dying back. It is remarkably drought-tolerant for a fern, taking the periodic drying that life in a crevice imposes.
- Family
- Aspleniaceae
- Type
- fern
- Lifespan
- perennial
- Height
- 0.3–0.8 ft
- Spacing
- 0.3–0.5 ft apart
- Light
- part shade, shade
- Soil moisture
- moist
- Soil pH
- alkaline, neutral
- Landscape uses
- groundcover, container, naturalizing
- Native states
- AL, AR, AZ, CO, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NM, NV, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WV