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Sphaeropteris tomentosissima; photograph Magnus Manske, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAMagnus Manske, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Sphaeropteris tomentosissima (Copel.) R.M.Tryon

Cyatheaceae · New Guinea · listed by its family as a fern or moss

No habitat climate
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Sphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Magnus Manske, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Packa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph Packa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons 10 photographs ›

About the genus · Sphaeropteris

Sphaeropteris is a genus of tree ferns in the family Cyatheaceae. It has been treated as a subgenus within the genus Cyathea, but is accepted in the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group classification of 2016.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Sphaeropteris", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a fern or moss, listed under the family Cyatheaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”.

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.
How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Group. Listed under the family Cyatheaceae in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 10 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 10 of the 10 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNew Guinea · introduced: Tasmania · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker-4.167, 138.667 · in the densest population, 6 records (60% of those in range)
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “montane tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 10 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. Under a dozen records behind the map. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 10 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 10 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Sphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 1did not loadSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 2did not loadSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 3did not loadSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 4did not loadSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 5did not loadSphaeropteris tomentosissima, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Magnus Manske, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (3); Packa, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (2).

Other Sphaeropteris 11 in the reference

Sphaeropteris atrox Cyatheaceae Sphaeropteris brunoniana Cyatheaceae Sphaeropteris cooperi Sphaeropteris cooperi Scaly tree fern Photo: CC BY, Kevin FaccendaSphaeropteris excelsa Sphaeropteris excelsa Norfolk tree fern Photo: CC0, author not stated Sphaeropteris felina Cyatheaceae Sphaeropteris glauca Sphaeropteris glauca Cyatheaceae Photo: CC BY, Fabian BrambachSphaeropteris intermedia Sphaeropteris intermedia Cyatheaceae Photo: CC BY, Irisa HudsonSphaeropteris lunulata Sphaeropteris lunulata Balabala Photo: CC BY, Cheng-Wei CHENSphaeropteris medullaris Sphaeropteris medullaris Black tree fern Photo: CC BY-SA, Tony WillsSphaeropteris quindiuensis Sphaeropteris quindiuensis Cyatheaceae Photo: CC BY, Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., CanadaSphaeropteris robusta Sphaeropteris robusta Cyatheaceae Photo: CC BY, ian_mcallan

Names & registers

Also known as Cyathea tomentosissima. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidata

The record

Family
Cyatheaceae
Described by
(Copel.) R.M.Tryon
Native to
New Guinea
Wild records
10 in range · 10 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-2210 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 6 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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