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Strict Genus: Sphaeropteris

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Search by botanical or common name, genus, or family. SilvaGrid also recognizes many botanical synonyms and standard hybrid notation.

Name search: Use Botanical or Common Name to search a full botanical name such as Acer palmatum, a genus such as Acer, or a common name such as maple.
Synonyms: The same field recognizes many outdated or alternative botanical names and links them to their currently accepted taxa.
Hybrids and graft chimaeras: In the same field, you can type a standard 'x' in place of the botanical hybrid symbol (×). Use '+' when searching for graft chimaeras.
Family search: Use Botanical Family to explore taxa within a family such as Rosaceae.

1. Climate

About climate mapping

To make searching practical, SilvaGrid groups the bioclimatic zones from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) into five primary macro-climates:

Tropical: Equatorial and tropical zones defined by consistent year-round warmth. This encompasses the wet tropics, seasonally dry tropics, and cooler high-altitude montane tropics.
Subtropical: Warm transition zones between tropical and temperate regions, typically characterized by mild, largely frost-free winters. (Note: WCVP groups dry-summer Mediterranean climates within this broader biome).
Temperate: Mid-latitude climates defined by distinct seasonal shifts, including a true winter season where regular frosts and plant dormancy are expected.
Arid: Moisture-deficient climates—including true deserts and dry shrublands—where evaporation exceeds precipitation, requiring severe drought adaptations.
Cold: High-latitude subarctic or high-altitude subalpine climates defined by severe winters, prolonged freezing, and highly restricted growing seasons.

These categories describe a species' primary native environment and serve as a broad baseline for cultivation. While many plants can be successfully grown across multiple macroclimates—for example, some species mapped to the Tropical macroclimate can also be grown in temperate climates—others may have much narrower climatic requirements within their mapped macroclimate. Local factors such as frost hardiness, summer heat, rainfall and soil conditions should always be considered before planting.

2. Plant Types

About plant types

SilvaGrid Plant Types are practical horticultural and botanical groupings derived from WCVP life-form descriptions, taxonomy, or a combination of the two. Some correspond closely to established botanical groups, while others bring together plants with similar growth forms for practical discovery.

Trees: Woody plants with persistent above-ground stems, generally forming an elevated crown or canopy. Large herbaceous tree-like plants are excluded.
Shrubs: Woody or partly woody plants with a shrub or subshrub growth form, typically branching low rather than forming a single main trunk.
Climbers & Vines: Plants with a climbing growth habit, including herbaceous climbers and woody lianas that use other vegetation or structures for support.
Conifers: Gymnosperms from the major conifer families, including pines, cypresses, podocarps and their relatives, ranging from low shrubs to large trees.
Palms & Cycads: True palms from the Arecaceae family together with cycads. The two are not close botanical relatives, but are grouped here as a practical horticultural and landscape category.
Ferns: Vascular, spore-producing plants within the fern group, ranging from small ground-layer and epiphytic forms to large tree ferns.
Grasses, Sedges & Rushes: A practical group combining true grasses, sedges, rushes and restios. Bamboos are shown separately because of their distinctive growth form.
Bamboos: Members of the grass family, shown separately from other grasses because of their distinctive growth forms and horticultural use.
Herbaceous Perennials: Non-woody, multi-year plants, including evergreen tropical perennials and large herbaceous forms. Bulbs and other geophytes are shown separately.
Annuals & Biennials: Short-lived plants that complete their life cycle over one or two growing seasons.
Bulbs & Geophytes: Plants with underground storage organs such as bulbs, corms, tubers or rhizomes, allowing them to persist through seasonal dormancy.
Cacti & Succulents: Cacti and other succulent plants with fleshy or thickened tissues associated with water storage, spanning many unrelated botanical groups.
Aquatic & Pond Plants: Plants adapted to living in water or water-saturated soils, including submerged, floating and emergent forms.
Air Plants & Epiphytes: Epiphytic and lithophytic plants that grow on trees or rocks, including many plants commonly described as air plants.

3. Native range (WGSRPD)

Continent

Region

Botanical country

About WGSRPD mapping

SilvaGrid uses the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) to organise native plant distributions. WGSRPD is an international botanical standard maintained by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) and is also used by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP).

Botanical geography: SilvaGrid uses WGSRPD continents, regions and "botanical countries". These provide consistent units for recording plant distributions, but they do not always correspond exactly to modern political countries.
Consistent distribution data: Using the same geographic framework as WCVP allows SilvaGrid to preserve and compare native-range information consistently across the global plant dataset.

WGSRPD is a system for recording plant distributions rather than a climate, habitat or site-suitability classification.

Genus Sphaeropteris

View Botanical Profile & Insights

Classified within the Cyatheaceae family, the genus Sphaeropteris is a group comprising 108 taxa. It is native to North America, South America, Temperate Asia, Tropical Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific. Across its taxa, it is commonly associated with wet tropical environments.

Data Profile

Taxonomic Scale: 108 taxa (106 base species, 2 variants).
Centers of Diversity: Tropical Asia (84), the Pacific (18), Australasia (8)
Primary Climates: Wet Tropical (100), Subtropical (7), Montane Tropical (1)
Dominant Forms: Trees (15), Shrubs (8)

108 taxa found

Showing 30 (page 1 of 4)

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Sphaeropteris aciculosa

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris aeneifolia

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris agatheti

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris albifrons

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris albosetacea

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris alternans

Family: Cyatheaceae

Tropical Shrubs Ferns

Sphaeropteris angiensis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris angustipinna

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris aramaganensis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Tropical Trees Ferns

Sphaeropteris arthropoda

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris assimilis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris atrospinosa

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris atrox

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris atrox var. atrox

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris atrox var. inermis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris auriculifera

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris australis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Subtropical Trees Ferns

Sphaeropteris binuangensis

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris brackenridgei

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris brunei

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris brunoniana

Family: Cyatheaceae

Subtropical Trees Ferns

Sphaeropteris capitata

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris carrii

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris celebica

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris cooperi

— Australian Tree Fern, Lacy Tree Fern, Scaly Tree Fern, Cooper's Tree Fern, Cooper's Cyathea, Straw Tree Fern, Giant Scaly Tree Fern, Cooper's Cyathea Family: Cyatheaceae

Subtropical Trees Ferns

Sphaeropteris crinita

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris cuatrecasasii

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris curranii

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris discophora

Family: Cyatheaceae

Sphaeropteris elliptica

Family: Cyatheaceae

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