One of the delights of bushwalking in a steep and rocky area is the chance of coming across some Necklace Fern (Asplenium flabellifolium).
This decorative little fern has bright. pale or mid-green fronds anywhere from 10cm to 20cm long, and it has a distinct preference for growing on rocky slopes, and especially at the base of rocks or in rock crevices, where it benefits from moisture seeping through.
I often see it on the escarpment slopes, and it can even turn up in escarpment gardens where conditions haven't been too deeply modified in order to suit introduced plants or to create neat- and tidiness.
In good conditions, Necklace Fern forms a delicious soft, green shagpile carpet that you just want to lie down in and snuggle, but unfortunately it is too delicate for that sort of treatment. It is also too delicate – apparently – to be cultivated, as I've never seen it anywhere in a nursery. But that's fine: it's worth respecting as one of those plants that will find its own way to where it wants to grow.
And the lower slopes of the escarpment – where even among the housing, forested creeks run down to the sea – are areas that may host this species.
Like all ferns, it reproduces via air-borne spores, meaning that spores can settle and grow new plants anywhere suitable nearby. The rocky informal walls at the rear of many properties that back onto creeks sometimes host Necklace Fern, so if you live or walk along an urban creek you might be lucky to see it.
We had one turn up in our chaotic garden in the foothills of Mount Pleasant: it suddenly appeared at the base of a large Illawarra Flame Tree, nestling in among a massive clump of Elkhorn Fern that our neighbours had kindly gifted us.
Although much of the garden was quite sunny and exposed, the microclimate created in this shady south corner of the block seemed to suit it really well. In the driest of conditions, it dries out and shrivels up to almost nothing above ground, but come good rains, it springs right back again. Three years of La Niña have it looking really luxuriant around the region at the moment.
