Asplenium platyneuron 'Brunswick Giant'

Asplenium platyneuron is a widespread US native, found from Maine west to Arizona, but for some reason is rarely seen in gardens. For a woodland rock garden, I cannot imagine a better choice than this durable, drought-tolerant, and easy-to-grow evergreen fern. The short, limp, sterile fronds have little value except to highlight the rigidly erect, narrow, fertile fronds that give the plant its anorexic but architectural structure. Our spore-propagated offering of Asplenium platyneuron 'Brunswick Giant' is from our original collection from Brunswick Co., NC, where it stood 18" tall in dry shade. About the only thing ebony spleenwort doesn't like is wet soils.