during my recent travels in southeast asia, i was blessed with the opportunity to visit moonriver lodge, a family owned & operated farmstay in the middle of Malaysia’s Sigar Highlands pristine bamboo jungle … i wrote this blog post for my gracious hosts ….
Ferns are intensely fascinating and beautiful plants. They’re among the oldest plants on Earth and they dominated many ecosystems around the world in prehistoric times.
If you’re a fern lover, you must visit the bamboo forest at Moonriver Lodge. You’ll find ferns big and small, including fern trees! And of course, whorled fiddleheads pepper the landscape with spectacular, subtle grace.
But by far the most stunning ferns you’ll see are the glow-in-the-light (or iridescent) ferns along the footpath of the bamboo forest trail. These ferns are humble in their beauty, so you have to pay attention to the fringes of the path in order to find them.
They’re colloquially known as the peacock fern or paku merak (which translates from Malay to English as “peacock nail”). The botanical name of the species is Selaginella willdenowii (synonym S. wallichiana) and they’re actually lycopods or club mosses (close relatives of ferns).
Once you discover them, you’ll be amazed by their exquisiteness. Their leaves glitter metallic blues, violets, and greens. Each leaf is subtly different and every angle catches the sunlight with a distinctive hue.