Overview
Hooker's spleenwort, Asplenium hookerianum, is a small fern found throughout New Zealand in forest and scrub.
Our DNA analyses of Asplenium hookerianum populations found them to be genetically diverse and are characterised by their own, "endemic" genetic variants.
Because genetic diversity and endemism takes time to develop, these populations must have survived at least the last cold period of the Ice Age in situ. Because Asplenium hookerianum needs woody plants for shelter, shrubs or trees of some kind must have been similarly widespread.