Ferns: Help ID tropical fern with very long leaves

Hello everyone, I'm hoping you can help me ID this fern. It is at the very top of my plant lust list. It belongs to a friend of mine and she has no idea what it is. The fronds are reaching 4-5 ft (up to 1.5 meters) long I've coveted this one for years. Please help me! :)

 

I just moved this to the new Ferns etc. forum, noticed there were no replies, and I feel bad about that. I also feel bad about answering when I really don't know this, but the rhizomes creeping across the top of the pot make me think of hare's foot fern and its relatives. I think these are Polypodium. I found a photo that comes up for this Bing query: polypodium - Bing images. The leaves at the upper left look similar. That seems to be called Polypodium fallax. I leave this with you, or maybe this will spur someone else to reply.

 

Phlebodium (Polypodium) aureum ‘Mandaianum’ or a related cultivar?

 

And thank you so much Wendy (and whoever else was involved) for creating this forum!
I would have never seen this thread without it.

 

Agree with N, this is Phlebodium aureum. Hare-foot fern !!? Origin sub tropical South America.

 

Wow, thank you guys so much for the ideas!! It sure does have some similarities to the crested version of Phlebodium aureum, but I've never seen one that long & slender. I do already do grow the regular version of Phlebodium aureum and it definitely wants to be much bushier, wider, & shorter than than this mystery fern. Does anyone know if Phlebodium has much-longer leaved species?

 

Another question, does anyone know if the crested condition is carried thru to the spore, or is it more like standard variegation where you are much more likely to just get the regular form in offspring?

 

I agree that it's doesn't look like the Phlebodium aureum that's the normal hare's foot fern, which seems to be what I have, and I would not have thought it was the same as yours, but what about the cultivar 'Mandaianum' that Nik suggested?

 

Wendy the 'Mandaianum' cultivar is basically the same as what I'm talking about above when I say "crested version". I'm referring to that cultivar and any others like it. Yes, definitely similar, but I would have thought the general growth pattern to be similar in the crested & non-crested versions. It just seems quite a stretch for me to assume a leaf mutation like that can also carry a big increase in frond length, a narrowing of frond width, and a changing of the growth habit. But I'm not sure.
One other thing that confuses me is the pictures of crested Phlebodium aureum I can find, including the 'Mandaianum' cultivar, are in Europe or Asia. I don't see it for sale on our continent, making it seemingly a rare plant here; and my friend who owns this one is not a rare plant appreciator at all. She said she just picked it up casually many years ago a random nursery she can't remember (grrr!).
Wish you guys could see how big it really is in person, it's amazing. I reeeeeeally want to find one of these badly!!

 

Do plants reproducing from spores have a lot of natural variation?

This photo from Dave's Garden looks a lot like yours.
PlantFiles Pictures: Phlebodium, Blue Fern, Crested Bear's Paw Fern, Golden Polypody Fern 'Mandaianum' (Phlebodium aureum) by growin (davesgarden.com)
But I agree that you'd be disappointed if you were to end up with one just like mine.
There seem to be two different things called Bear's Paw Fern.

My P. aureum used to pop up in other potted plants all over my living room. It hasn't done it so much any more, maybe because the spores just look like orange dust falling into my pump organ keyboard, and they're not so attractive anyway, so I tend to cut them off. Which is to say, maybe your friend's plant will eventually get an offspring that she could pass along to you. That aroid on the same cabinet - that would be a likely place for one to appear. Be sure to tell her not to discard any funny little new growth on the soil of her other plants before checking with you.

 

Here is a picture from Denver Botanic Gardens that shows almost identical plant:
Phlebodium aureum 'Mandaianum'

 

I have crested and normal Japanese painted ferns in the yard. Every year I get multiple new plants appearing throughout the area, but none of them are crested. Also, their color is quite different from the parents. That leads me to believe that propagation from spores will not retain the condition.

 

I have found the same that new ferns from spores rarely have the same look as the parents. A bit like Maple seedlings.

 

I believe that the reason maple seedlings do not look like their parents is that they are hybrids of 2 different cultivars. Ferns, on the other hand, do not cross pollinate in the same sense and most do not hybridize easily. For what it's worth, the common native ferns in my garden always produce identical new plants.

Having said that, I don't know why some fancy ferns do not produce identical progeny unless perhaps the parents' unique characteristics are the result of mutations that cannot be transmitted through their spores or are, perhaps, hybrids themselves.
Fern Reproduction

 

Very interesting link Margot. I fully agree that this tends to only refer to the fancy ferns as you put it. Just to update you as Horsetail is mentioned in tne video, I have just moved all Horsetail threads to this forum. It is one of, if not the biggest hits of all queries by non members and new members alike.

 

Is that because so many people want to know how to get rid of it?

 

Absolutly Lol.