Adiantum gertrudis
A threatened maidenhair fern endemic to the Mediterranean-climate zone of central Chile, notable for the hairs covering its fronds. It grows in shaded, rocky ravines and under open sclerophyll woodland, where rain falls almost entirely in winter and summers are long and dry. In cultivation it needs a cool, bright-shade spot and a drier, slower summer rather than the constant warmth and wet of tropical maidenhairs.
Where it grows wild
Herbarium labels place it in open woodland of Cryptocarya alba, Quillaja saponaria and Lithraea caustica, among rocks in ravines with running water and Escallonia scrub, on rocky outcrops in xerophytic Puya scrub, inside Nothofagus macrocarpa woodland, and even near the coastal dunes at Reñaca. The common thread is a sheltered, shaded pocket in an otherwise dry landscape: ravine sides, rock crevices and the shade of shrubs.
From near sea level on the ValparaÃso coast to about 1,200 m; dated records with an altitude sit at 320, 1,043 and 1,170 m.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app.