Onychium japonicum (carrot fern, "Tachishinobu")

Japanese name: タチシノブ （立忍）
Scientific name: Onychium japonicum

[Overview]
An evergreen fern growing in sunny, somewhat dry places in the mountains, at the edges of mixed woodland, on stone walls and similar sites.
It often grows in colonies.
A long rhizome covered with brown, lanceolate scales creeps along.
The leaves are of two kinds, spore-bearing and sterile; the spore-bearing leaves are ovate-lanceolate, up to 60 cm long in large ones, finely divided pinnately 3–4 times, with slender, pointed lobes that are hairless, glossy and bright green.
The sporangia clusters are borne at the tips of the lobes and are enclosed by a false indusium formed by the reflexed leaf margin.
The sterile leaves are smaller than the spore-bearing leaves and less deeply cut.
The leaf stalk is 8–20 cm long, straw-colored with a purplish brown tinge at the base, and hairless.

[Uses]
It is sometimes mixed into washi (Japanese paper) as decoration.

[Cultivation]
Propagate by division.
It prefers a sunny to partially shaded place with soil that is well drained and retains water well.
Wrap the rhizome around sphagnum moss, or if using soil, a mixture of leaf mold and akadama soil is good.
Water thoroughly when the surface of the planting medium dries, and it is also good to mist the leaves.
Fertilizer is not particularly necessary, but a small amount of diluted liquid fertilizer may be given after division or in spring.
There are no particular pests or diseases.

[Notes]
Resembling Shinobu, its leaves stand upright, which is the origin of the Japanese name.

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