Of the Aspleniaceae family, from Australia and Asia, this fern grows to a large size! Up to 2m in diameter, and occurs commonly as an epiphyte on large trees. It is sometimes called a litter basket fern because it’s cone shaped leaf rosette collectes leaf litter from the tree canopy above it. This leaf litter then rots down to provide the compost on which the plant grows. Asplenium nidus is one of a complex of closely related species from South East Asia.
Bird’s nest fern
These large leaf-litter filled rosettes form the home to multiple ant colonies in the wild. These rosettes have formed the basis for considerable community ecology research. These large leaf rosettes also form the daytime home of the Sunda Pangolin. In our greenhouse we don’t expect to find either ants or pangolins in our young bird’s nest fern!
Ellwood MDF and Foster WA (2004) Doubling the estimate of invertebrate biomass in a rainforest canopy. Nature, 429:549–551.
Ellwood MDF, Jones DT and Foster WA (2002). Canopy ferns in lowland dipterocarp forest support a prolific abundance of ants, termites and other invertebrates. Biotropica, 34: 575–583.
Fayle TM, Chung AYC, Dumbrell AJ, Eggleton P and Foster WA (2009) The effect of rain forest canopy architecture on the distribution of epiphytic ferns (Asplenium spp.) in Sabah, Malaysia. Biotropica, 41: 676–681.