Lygodium japonicum

Lygodium japonicum is a species of fern that is known by the common names Japanese climbing fern and vine-like fern. It is native to eastern Asia, from Pakistan through India east to Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and south through southeastern Asia to New Guinea. The fern is present in the southeastern United States, Puerto Rico, South Africa, and Australia as an introduced species.

Wikipedia-Autoren · CC BY-SA · Quelle

This fern produces a creeping stem from which grow very long leaves, the longest exceeding 30 metres (98 feet). The leaves have rachises, which are vine-like and may climb other vegetation. What appear to be individual leaves sprouting from the twining rachis are actually leaflets, which are smaller segments from the main leaf. There are two types of leaflets, sterile and fertile. The sterile frond has lance-shaped segments. The fertile frond has more intricately divided, fringed segments. It is lined with sporangia on the edges. The plant reproduces via spores and spreads vegetatively via underground rhizomes.

Wikipedia-Autoren · CC BY-SA · Quelle

The specific epithet japonicum, refers to the Latin term for 'being from Japan'. It was first published and described as Ophioglossum japonicum in the family Ophioglossaceae by Carl Peter Thunberg in Syst. Veg. edition 14 on page 926 in 1784, before Olof Swartz reclassified it as Lygodium japonicum in J. Bot. (edited by Schrader) on page 106 in 1802.

Wikipedia-Autoren · CC BY-SA · Quelle