Hello, I recently acquired what I believe to be a fern. It is young (no taller than 6"). Strong green, heart-shaped leaves almost like young syngonium in shape. Stiff black stems that are very wiry with a small amount of hair. Leaves (fronds?) are also thin with an almost cardboard texture with little flex in them. Thank you for your help! edit:pics added
A few of us tried to grow that one in our offices here this summer. One is still alive, but not looking good. It is Hemionitis (arifolia, I believe). Hopefully you will do better with your plant, than I did with mine. I think you may need to keep it in a highly humid environment. And, yes it is a fern.
Thanks Eric, that's definitely it. I'll work on setting it up in a healthy manner, but I'm not holding my breath.
I bought one of these Hemionitis arifolia this year when it was warm and sunny here, must have been a month ago, in March, at the UBCBG Shop in the Garden. It only said Heart Leaf Fern; I had to look up the botanical name when I got it home, then read about how hard it is to grow and how many bugs are fond of it. It is in a bright room about four meters from a southwest-facing window, with other plants to the window-side of it shielding it from direct sun. I'm providing humidity by keeping it in the neighbourhood of those other plants, one of which has mealy bugs kept somewhat in check, so my fingers are crossed about that. I was being careful to not overwater it, but missed the cue that it was getting too dry, and in one day, all the leaves crisped up. There was one totally green leaf, and about five only half-crisped ones, so I kept those and cut off everything else. Now some new leaves are coming, I have two totally green original leaves (not sure how the second one fleshed back out), and on a half-crisped leaf, a small plantlet has started to grow. I hadn't come across that when I read about it before. I am tentatively excited.
I came across this while I'm looking for something else. My plant eventually died, maybe a few months later. For some reason, I have now bought a new one - they seem to show up in the shops in the spring. The plants with the mealy bugs are gone now (only one remains but in a different spot), so there is less humidity around. I had forgotten about that requirement.
As I recall, this plant showed up in the stores earlier in the year, no doubt intended to become Valentine's Day purchases, taking advantage of the plant's heart-shaped leaves.
Douglas Justice grew one in his office in a terrarium and it did very well in there for a few years. I think it died when removed from the enclosed space.
Ah, poor thing. I will treat mine as a place-holder. It's in the pot, now jardinière, where I had one of the two mealy-bug harbouring plants. Maybe by the time it crisps up I'll have decided what I really want to grow there.
Well, it's been fun so far. I have figured out that the tall fronds with the the dark undersides are fertile fronds. I also have just read that I need to not overwater this, but it seems a very fine line, as it's so easy to dry it out so quickly.
Two years later, the Hemionitis arifolia is still alive, enough to my surprise that I haven't worked at remembering its name yet. It lost a lot of leaves at first, had only six at a time for quite a while. It doesn't have as many leaves now as it first had, but my neighbour first noticed that just last week it was getting more full, and then all of a sudden it started getting several new leaves at once. Today I noticed a piggy-back leaf on a healthy leaf. I've been watering it once a week - mostly whether it needs it or not though it usually seems lighter than after watering - by taking it to the sink and running the sprayer generously over the soil, then leaving the water run through before putting the pot back in the jardiniere. The plant is raised slightly on a small saucer and the jardiniere itself has drainage. I have just a few times given it a bit of extra water mid-week when the weather has been very warm. There are no plants close enough to it to contribute any humidity. @verdekaleb, if you're still around, my apologies for hijacking your thread, and thanks for your posting, which got me the name.
I got excited about this hairy new leaf on my heart-leaf fern, Hemionitis arifolia. Three leaves crisped up on me about a month ago, one of which had the 2nd story leaf - I was surprised/relieved that I didn't lose the whole plant.
Well, it's not in sand, is facing south-west (the only direction it should not be facing is south) but is 3.5 m away from the bare window. It's not exactly sheltered, being alone on top of the cabinet. That page says it can be grown outside in the UK in summer, but that's not going to happen.
