Plant Name

Scientific Name: Dicranopteris linearis

Common Names: Old World Forkedfern, Uluhe, Climbing Fern, False Staghorn

Plant Characteristics

Duration: Perennial, Evergreen

Growth Habit: Vine, Herb/Forb, Fern

Hawaii Native Status: Native (indigenous)

Flower Color: Non-flowering

Height: Sprawling to 20 feet (6 m) or more

Description: The blue to purple fiddleheads emerge from underground rhizomes. The fronds divide repeatedly into pairs. The pinnae (leaflets) are green and linear. This very common, colonial, vining fern has long, tough, wiry, highly branched stems that sprawl across the ground to form dense, tangled, impassable thickets in disturbed areas like old lava flows.

The very similar Uluhe (Dicranopteris emarginata) has very hairy fronds, stipes (stems), and rachises (compound leaf stalks), while those of D. linearis are hairless to slightly hairy. The also similar Scrambling Fern (Diplopterygium pinnatum) has much larger fronds that only branch once or twice, while the similar Hawai'i Umbrella Fern (Sticherus owhyensis) has somewhat larger fronds and leaflets that entirely line the leaf stalks with no bare areas at the base as with D. linearis.

Classification

Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Division: Pteridophyta – Ferns
Class: Filicopsida
Order: Polypodiales
Family: Gleicheniaceae – Forking Fern family
Genus: Dicranopteris Bernh. – forkedfern
Species: Dicranopteris linearis (Burm.) Underw. – Old World forkedfern

More About This Plant

Hawaii County Distribution: Found on all main islands