Cyathea atrox

Origin: New Guinea
A wonderful Tree Fern from high altitude grass lands of Eastern New Guinea.
It originates in grassland at high altitude of between 2750-to 3600 metres above sea level.
The trunk can grow up to 6 metre tall will medium sized fronds with sizes from 1-2 metres long.

This for me is the best looking of the 'white' tree ferns and is up there with Cyathea medullaris as my favourite Tree Fern.

I have a small number of trunked specimens (which have ALL been grown in cultivation from spore) in stock. They have decent sized trunks of circa 15" to 18" with frond lengths around 6 foot in total. They have been grown in 40 litre bags to give you some idea of their size.

However for the purposes of transport they will be travelling with most croziers cut off, but they quickly re establish.

As regards their hardiness in the UK and Ireland and can only guess that they are borderline in only the most mild parts of Britain and Ireland. I have 3 large specimens planted out in my garden in Kerry and I'll report back with how they get on.

Photographs are from one of the ferns planted in Kells Garden, Kerry in early December 2006. This is their first year in the garden only planted out in August. Should they not defoliate over winter I would expect the crown to have a large number of fronds, up to 20, at one time.