Indoor Tree Ferns

[ahosey01]

Want a small tree fern species to keep indoors. The room is bright but will receive no direct sunlight.  Needs to be very shade tolerant.

Suggestions?

[Merlyn]

I understand that Angiopteris Evecta likes a lot of shade.  Oooooo...you said "small."  Hmmm....   

Honestly I have no suggestions, though I know a lot of people have regular ferns indoors as houseplants.  I'd imagine that some of the smaller tree types could work.  I guess it depends on your definition of small.  Cyathea Cooperi is not huge, but probably not small either.  Dicksonia Antarctica is a bit smaller, and there's a native Florida one called Ctenitis sloanei that is relatively small diameter too.

There's a fairly big tree ferns thread on here, you might try asking there.

[Merlyn]

Here's the thread I was thinking about:

And this one too, but not as much info on tree ferns:

 

[Cindy Adair]

No idea if the tree ferns that are plentiful on my farm in western Puerto Rico (most of them are likely Cyathea) will grow indoors.  

They are tough as nails for me and pop up as ground covers after hurricanes spread the spores over hills with landslides. However I am much more humid than the average air conditioned house.

Good luck!

[philinsydney]

C. cooperi usually likes fairly sunny aspects compared to a lot of treeferns.

[sgvcns]

Looking beyond tree ferns check out Blechnum gibbum.

It is a trunking fern with a similar look as Cyathea etc.

Grows in shade so maybe indoors. 4-500mm fronds

Not sure of availability in USA however

Steve