Ferns in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific

The warmer months are, in many respects, the ideal time for enjoying nature, including connecting with the amazing diversity of plants around us. In summer 2024, Curator Botany Leon Perrie was traversing the country to get the final photos for the fern guidebook he co-authored with Patrick Brownsey.

Ponga, mamaku, kātote, whekī, and whekī ponga are the most common tree ferns you’d encounter in New Zealand’s bush. Fern expert Leon Perrie tells us how to tell the difference.

The silver fern is one of the favoured symbols for a new flag. Aside from being one of New Zealand’s icons, the silver fern is a real plant. But being on a nation’s flag deserves a background check – what is the silver fern?

King Tāwhiao commissioned botanist Charles Jeffs to make a collection of ferns highly valued for their medicinal properties and used as rongoā – for medicinal healing.

You’ll find scaly tree ferns almost everywhere in New Zealand where there are forests, although you might be surprised that the silver fern is not as widespread as you might think for such a popular icon.

Three Te Papa botanists visited Norfolk Island together with colleagues from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. Their purpose was to collect ferns for research. Curator of Botany Leon Perrie introduces the significance of Norfolk Island's ferns.

The ‘silver fern’ Cyathea dealbata – ponga in te reo Māori – is a species of tree fern only found in New Zealand but it is recognised internationally.

Botany Curator Leon Perrie writes about why kōwaowao, hound’s tongue fern has had a scientific name change from Microsorum pustulatum to Lecanopteris pustulata.

Curator Botany Leon Perrie and Research Fellow Patrick Brownsey are compiling photographic guides to the ferns and lycophytes in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Joseph Banks’ collection of coloured botanical engravings was painstakingly printed in a limited edition of 110 sets, titled Banks’ Florilegium.

Silver Ferns collected on Cook’s first voyage to New Zealand tell stories of science and exploration, and of the Māori concept of time. Historian Dame Anne Salmond and Botany Curator Leon Perrie bring their perspectives to these fragile symbols of Aotearoa.

Botany Curator Leon Perrie describes how a New Zealand fern’s closest relative has turned up in an unexpected place.

Finding and naming new species is a core part of the job for Te Papa’s scientists. More than 2500 animal and plant species have been named by museum staff since 1865, including the fern Asplenium lepidotum, as Botany Curator Leon Perrie explains.

Cyathea dealbata. From the album: New Zealand ferns. 148 varieties, 1880, Auckland, by Herbert Dobbie. Te Papa (O.042900)

We have several copies of the so-called “blue books” of New Zealand ferns. These were produced by Herbert Dobbie and Eric Craig in the late nineteenth century and were made by a process akin to blueprinting, described by Dobbie himself as “a simple form of photography or nature printing” employing light-sensitive iron salts, most commonly on paper.

Improving the understanding of the floras adjacent to New Zealand in the south-west Pacific region, involving the delimitation, naming, distributions, and relationships of species.

Producing an online resource documenting and illustrating the indigenous and naturalised plants of the New Zealand Botanical Region.