Asplenium platyneuron
A small, tough, temperate spleenwort from eastern North America, with a disjunct population in southern Africa. It has flat rosettes of evergreen sterile fronds and taller, erect fertile fronds on shiny dark stalks. It grows on soil and rock, even old mortar, in partial shade, and needs a real winter to thrive.
Where it grows wild
It grows in forests and woodlands, including sandy pinelands, and on cliffs, ledges, talus, rocky slopes, old fields and disturbed places. It often grows on thin soil, calcareous rock and mortared walls. Unlike most spleenworts, it grows on soil as well as rock. It prefers intermediate light, neither full shade nor full sun.
It grows from sea level to about 1300 m; South African populations are usually above 600 m. Few of the records used here carry an elevation.
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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. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.