After the excitement of seeing Kevin Mills' new book on South Coast Ferns finally launched into the world, I've been paying more attention than usual to local ferns.

The warming and drying conditions this spring mean many ferns are not exactly at their best, but there are still plenty to be seen around the place, particularly if you walk along cool and shady creek lines.

Some creeks have been highly disturbed, while others are in relatively good condition, but there's always something to be seen. It's the Tender Brake, Pteris tremula, that's been catching my eye. Once you start looking, it's everywhere!

It's a mid-sized fern that looks like a pale and delicate Bracken Fern at first glance, with the most delightful pale green foliage. Despite the recent warm and dry weather, I'm seeing Tender Brake seedlings popping up all over the place, on the edges of rainforest creeks, shady slopes along the escarpment, and even on rock walls in gardens!

It is a truly excellent garden plant if you've got a suitable spot for it, somewhere fairly cool and fairly damp and fairly shady, where it will be pretty tough once established. 

You'll probably be walking past Tender Brake whenever you're in a rainforest area, because it's so common.

At the same time, it is somewhat similar to a number of other local fern species, and identifying it requires that you pay close attention to its unique features. This can be a total total pain, unless you're highly motivated to learn about ferns, but a couple of tips on this species are that it's smaller, softer and brighter green than the common Bracken Fern (Pteridium esculentum), and that it has brown stipes (stems), which quite a few other local ferns don't – many others have green stipes (stems).

It's also utterly and completely different-looking from the Jungle Brake (Pteris umbrosa) to which it's closely related, and with which it shares a name – why?? Anyway, that's enough of a lecture, keep an eye out for this lovely local fern when you're out wandering, or gardening!