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Japanese Climbing Fern

Scientific Name

Lygodium japonicum (Thunb. ex Murr.) Sw. (ITIS)

Common Name

Japanese climbing fern

Synonym

Ophioglossum japonicum (Fuchs 1960)

Native To

Asia and Australia (Leichty et al. 2011)

Date of U.S. Introduction

Early 1900s (Leichty et al. 2011)

Means of Introduction

Introduced as an ornamental (Leichty et al. 2011)

Impact

Smothers native vegetation by blocking sunlight and increases fire risk by allowing fire to spread up trees along its vines (Minogue et al. 2009)

Current U.S. Distribution

Southeastern U.S., Hawaii

Japanese climbing fern
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Japanese climbing fern

Credit

Photo by Chris Evans; University of Illinois

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Distribution / Maps / Survey Status

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Selected Resources

The section below contains highly relevant resources for this species, organized by source.

Partnership
Federal Government
State and Local Government
Academic
Citations