Caught out!

I've had another busy day with my colleague from Edinburgh, climbing up banks and struggling through rhododendrons to find number tags and labels - extreme gardening indeed! Worse than plant hunting in China! We've got through a lot of work though and I could do with a sleep!

I realised at 4.30 that I hadn't taken a picture and the light was fast fading, so I came home and photographed one of my special ferns on the living room carpet.

This is Cheilanthes myriophylla, an American xeric fern which has a very wide range - as far as I can tell it extends from the southern USA down to Chile and Argentina, in dry or desert habitats. This may seem strange for a fern, but it manages to extract moisture from cracks in the rocks where it apparently prefers to grow. It might be hardy, but would definitely not appreciate our wet winters! The older fronds have a grey appearance - more so than is obvious in this picture - to help avoid water loss.

I grew mine from spores sown in 2007.