This fern looks like it belongs in a Victorian greenhouse. Not a New Zealand gully. Its fronds are finely divided. Intricate. Feathery. They seem almost artificial. They are soft, floppy, and translucent. Like green lace. A mature plant forms a crown of these fronds. Each one arches outward and downward. This creates a fountain of green. It seems too delicate for the rough forest. The contrast is striking. The fragility is apparent. Intricacy makes it special. Leptopteris superba means slender fern and superb. The name is accurate. The fronds are once-divided or twice-divided. The leaflets are divided again into tiny, feathery segments. The whole frond has a soft, drooping appearance. It looks like a fern designed by someone with too much time on their hands. And an eye for detail. The fronds are thin. Almost filmy. But not as thin as the filmy fern. They are translucent when held up to the light. A pale green glow emanates from them. The stems are dark and wiry. They contrast with the soft fronds. The structure is complex. It waits. The Prince of Wales Feather is not a pioneer. It does not colonise disturbed ground. It grows only in mature, stable forests. These have high humidity and deep shade. It finds a damp gully. A stream bank. A vertical rock face with constant moisture. And it settles in. It grows slowly. A large plant may be decades old. The patience is required. The conditions are strict. Reproduction occurs by spores, like all ferns. The fertile fronds are similar to the sterile ones. They are taller. They bear the sporangia on the undersides of the leaflets. The spores are released when the humidity is high. This ensures they land on damp surfaces. It is a fern of the mist. The drizzle. The constant drip of the West Coast. It cannot survive in dry air. It cannot survive in open sunlight. It needs the shelter of the old forest. The moisture of the damp gully. The patience of the deep bush. The dependency is total. In a world of common ferns, those that grow by the roadside or carpet every forest floor, the Prince of Wales Feather is the aristocrat. It is rare. Picky. Spectacular. It does not grow just anywhere. You have to earn the privilege of seeing it. The exclusivity is part of its nature. It demands effort. Walk into the deep bush of the West Coast. Follow a stream into the hills. Push through the undergrowth. Look for a damp gully. A vertical rock face. A curtain of green. That is the Prince of Wales Feather. The most intricate fern in the forest. It hides in the wet, dark, ancient places. It is not famous. It does not want to be. It just wants to be left alone. In the damp. In the dark. Growing its feathery fronds. Looking like royalty in the mud. No one told it otherwise.