With straight trunks 4.7 - 6 m (15 - 20 ft.) tall, 15 cm in diameter, Alsophila spinulosa is the tallest Taiwan fern. A relatively graceful tree fern that is pretty rare in cultivation. The enormous fronds are very finely divided and lacy. This is a forest fern, found in denser, darker forest than does Sphaeropteris lepifera the other common large fern of Taiwan. Alsophila spinulosa grows at the highest elevation of any tree fern in Taiwan, from 300 m to over 2500 m alt. It can handle light freezes. Listed in the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants as rare.
We collect our Alsophila spinulosa spore from high elevation mountain forests on the Taiwan mainland, therefore we regard this provenance as being in the cold-hardier end of the species’ natural range, and thereby believe this provenance capable of tolerating, but with some defoliation, several degrees of frost.
