Bolbitis quoyana

Dryopteridaceae

Bolbitis quoyana (Gaudich.) Ching

Link to Australian Plant Name Index for publication details and synonyms: https://id.biodiversity.org.au/name/apni/116297

Rhizome short-creeping; scales narrowly ovate with narrowly acute apices. Fronds erect, 30–120 cm long, dark green to dark bluish green. Stipe 15–50 cm long, scaly. Lamina 1-pinnate, with a pinnatifid apex. Pinnae of sterile fronds attached by stalks only except for 1 or 2 pairs immediately below the apex, 8–20 cm long, 2–4 cm wide; longest pinnae towards the base; margins shallowly to deeply lobed. Fertile laminae with smaller narrower paler pinnae and a longer stipe. Veins anastomosing, with several series of areoles on each side of a pinna midrib. 

Occurs in NE QLD from Lockerbie Scrub Cape York Peninsula to Johnstone River in the Wet Tropics. Also in Malesia and Polynesia.

Terrestrial in low altitude rainforest, usually in wet areas such as creek banks.

Produces small plantlets adventitiously from the frond apex where it touches the ground.

Readily grown in a container of moisture retentive mix or in the ground in a tropical or subtropical fernery or shaded part of the garden. The proliferous frond tips enable a colony to spread in moist places.

Similar to Bolbitis taylori from which it may be distinguished by its more complex venation pattern (several series of areoles on either side of midrib, cf. only 1–2 series in B. taylori) and by its stalked pinnae
(cf. broad decurrent pinna bases in B. taylori).