Asplenium hookerianum var. hookerianum
Common name
Hooker’s spleenwort
Synonyms
Asplenium adiantoides Raoul; Asplenium adiantoides var. minus Hook f.; Asplenium adiantoides var. hookeriana Hook. f.; Asplenium ornatum Colenso; Asplenium svmmetricum Colenso; Asplenium hookerianum Colenso
Family
Aspleniaceae
Flora category
Vascular – Native
Endemic taxon
No
Endemic genus
No
Endemic family
No
Structural class
Ferns
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
ASPHOO
Chromosome number
2n = 144
Current conservation status
The conservation status of all known New Zealand vascular plant taxa at the rank of species and below were reassessed in 2017 using the New Zealand Threat Classification System (NZTCS). This report includes a statistical summary and brief notes on changes since 2012 and replaces all previous NZTCS lists for vascular plants. Authors: By Peter J. de Lange, Jeremy R. Rolfe, John W. Barkla, Shannel P. Courtney, Paul D. Champion, Leon R. Perrie, Sarah M. Beadel, Kerry A. Ford, Ilse Breitwieser, Ines Schönberger, Rowan Hindmarsh-Walls, Peter B. Heenan and Kate Ladley.
2012 | Not Threatened
Previous conservation statuses
2009 | Not Threatened
2004 | Not Threatened
Distribution
Indigenous. New Zealand North, South, Chatham and Stewart islands. Scarce north of the Waikato. Present (but extremely uncommon) in Tasmania and South Eastern Australia.
Habitat
Coastal to alpine. Usually on shaded clay banks or rocky outcrops in scrub and open forest, or on the ground in disturbed forest remnants.
Features
Rhizome short, erect, bearing numerous brown, ovate, acuminate scales up to 10 × 2 mm. Stipes 20-100 mm long, pale brown below, green above, densely covered in small, subulate to narrowly ovate scales with filiform apices. Laminae lanceolate to rhombic, 40-250 × 10-150 mm, dark green, thin, normally bipinnate but often pinnate when young and almost tripinnate in well-grown specimens. Raches green, slender, and very scaly. Pinnae 5-15 pairs, very narrowly ovate to ovate, obtuse to acuminate, long-stalked, 10-80 × 5-20 mm, basal pair pointing upwards when fresh. Pinnules stalked, 3-10 pairs, linear to suborbicular, crenate to deeply incised (or almost pinnate), 3-12 × 3-10 mm, tending to lie at 90° to plane of frond in well-grown specimens. Sori sub-marginal on narrow pinnules, remote from margins on broad segments, 1-3 mm long
Similar taxa
Most likely to be confused with A. bulbiferum G.Forst. from which it differs by the absence of bulbils. Asplenium richardii (Hook.f.) Hook.f. is somewhat similar but usually much larger, with a stouter stipe, and the ultimate segments are linear, mostly < 1 mm wide; and the pinnae and pinnules are crowded and overlapping. Asplenium richardii is scarce and exclusively alpine in the North Island, and more common in the higher altitudinal part of the drier, eastern South Island than A. hookerianum. Asplenium hookerianum is distinguished from other asplenia by the non-creeping, tufted, growth habit, dull rather than glossy, thin fronds which bear mostly < 15 pairs of 2-3-4-pinnae, with the pinnules distinctly held on slender stalks, and which are not broadened in region of sorus. The sori are mostly submarginal, or if remote from margin, then they are < 4 mm long. Asplenium hookerianum var. colensoi Colenso differs by its much narrower pinnules (see Fact Sheet).
Flowering
Not applicable - spore producing
Flower colours
No flowers
Fruiting
Not applicable - spore producing
Life cycle
Minute spores are wind dispersed (Thorsen et al., 2009).
Propagation technique
Easily grown, and an excellent pot plant. However, rather slow growing, and as with all asplenia prone to infestations of scale and mealy bugs.
Etymology
asplenium: From the Greek a- ‘without’ and splene ‘spleen’, a northern hemisphere species, the black spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigrum), was once believed to be a cure for diseases of the spleen.
hookerianum: Named after Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (born 1817) - a world famous botanist who travelled on the Antarctic expedition of 1839 under the command of Sir James Ross and wrote “Handbook of New Zealand Flora” published in 1864-67 describing many specimens sent to Kew by collectors. He died in 1911 and has a memorial stone at Westminster Abbey London.
Where To Buy
Not Commercially available
Attribution
Description adapted from Brownsey (1977)
References and further reading
Brownsey, P.J. 1977: A taxonomic revision of the New Zealand species of Asplenium. New Zealand Journal of Botany 15: 39-86.
Thorsen, M. J.; Dickinson, K. J. M.; Seddon, P. J. 2009. Seed dispersal systems in the New Zealand flora. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 2009 Vol. 11 No. 4 pp. 285-309