Bolbitis heteroclita

Care at a glance

Overview

Be honest with yourself about what this fern is: the broadleaf form is mostly an emersed plant, and it is happiest in a paludarium or on the above-water section of hardscape where humidity is high. Fully submersed it survives rather than thrives, growing extremely slowly and often melting in hard or alkaline water, so if you keep it underwater give it soft, slightly acidic water, gentle light, clean circulation, and ideally CO2. Attach the rhizome to rock or wood and never bury it, or it rots. Propagate by dividing the rhizome or by lifting the plantlets that form on old fronds.

In the wild

Bolbitis heteroclita is widespread across tropical Asia, creeping over shaded rocks and banks beside streams and waterfalls. It lives mostly above the waterline in the splash zone, with only occasional flooding, and that emersed habit follows it into cultivation.

Good to know

A creeping-rhizome fern in the family Dryopteridaceae, related to the African Bolbitis heudelotii but far less aquatic in habit. The epithet heteroclita means irregular or deviating, a nod to how variable the fronds are, from simple blades to lobed, tail-tipped leaves. Like several Bolbitis it produces plantlets at the tips of older fronds, which root down and become independent plants.

Did you know

Old fronds grow a plantlet at the tip that bows down, takes root, and starts a new plant a step away from its parent, so a happy emersed colony slowly walks across the hardscape.

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