At a broad work table beneath the dappled sunlight on her lanai, Kay Lynch examines the beginnings of a palapalai fern, its tender roots and fronds nestled inside a glass flask.

The flask helps protect the native fern as it makes a transition from a lab in Manoa to a 4-inch pot at La‘au Hawai‘i, her nonprofit research nursery in the coastal valley near Kualoa on Oahu’s Windward side.

That’s where Lynch, a horticulturist, has dedicated the past 15 years of her life tending to Hawaiian ferns.

Lynch obtained a bachelor’s degree in horticulture from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in 1998 after a 23-year career in journalism. She said she became interested in native plants while hiking Hawaii’s ridges and valleys with knowledgeable friends.

“I loved being in the forest,” she said. “Through learning about Hawaiian plants and the plight of the Hawaiian forest, I wondered what I could do and settled for Hawaiian ferns because I like foliage plants.”

The mission of the Hawaiian Fern Project, as she calls it, is to outline propagation protocols for Hawaiian ferns to make them available for restoration work, landscaping and home gardens and to educate others about the beauty of these often overlooked plants.

Hawaii is home to about 170 native fern species, she said, three-fourths of which grow only in Hawaii. One has to be a hardy hiker to find them around Oahu, most notably on the Manoa and Kalawahine Cliff trails.

While they have no showy sprays of flowers, Lynch finds the textures and shapes of their fronds fascinating. The tapestry of green has a calming effect when you walk among them, she said, and each species has its own story.

The palapalai fern (Microlepia strigosa) has delicate, feathery fronds used in lei making and hula, while the endemic hoio (Diplazium sandwichianum) offers the curled-up fiddleheads that Hawaiians gathered to eat. The shoots of an introduced species are often called hoio, but this is the true one, she said.

Since 2002 Lynch has been propagating the palapalai from the Hawaiian gene pool collected through the Oahu Army Natural Resource Program for her research nursery.

Hawaii has a native maidenhair fern, iwaiwa (Adiantum capillus-veneris), but it’s found more often at mainland nurseries than here, she said. The popular hapuu, more commonly known as Hawaiian tree fern , grows up to 20 feet tall but at a rate of only about 1 inch per year.

With her fern books as guides — especially Daniel D. Palmer’s “Hawai‘i’s Ferns and Fern Allies” — some trial and error and persistence, Lynch has found ways to grow 20 Hawaiian fern species with relative ease.

Lynch shares lab space at UH’s Lyon Arboretum in Manoa, where she micropropagates the ferns from tissue cultures, eventually transferring them to 4-inch pots, a process that takes about 10 months. But she does most of her work at the nursery, where she resides in a two-bedroom home.

On the 1.2-acre property, which gets plenty of rainfall and has a small river running behind it, she’s constructed two shade houses — one measuring about 50 by 60 feet and the other 20 by 30 feet. Daily she walks among rows representing 45 different species of potted ferns, trimming brown fronds and adding water where necessary.

Each fern is carefully labeled with a tag specifying its origin and progress.

Ferns have many cultural uses but also play an important role as the understory of Hawaii’s forests, according to Lynch, preventing erosion, regulating water flow and contributing to the nutrient system.

In making the transition from journalist to horticulturist, Lynch took the UH Master Gardener’s class three times out of enthusiasm, eventually realizing it was more than just a hobby. While working at The Honolulu Advertiser, she took one horticulture course a semester at UH from 1992 to 1998 before retiring and dedicating herself full time to ferns.

The nursery ferns are not for sale to the public, but occasionally Lynch offers surplus plants at Lyon Arboretum or Foster Botanical Garden for $5 to $65, depending on size and species. Her palapalai ferns are available at Hui Ku Maoli Ola in Kaneohe.

Proceeds go back to her research, which she is dedicated to from sunup to sundown, seven days a week. The reward is seeing them thriving, she said, particularly in their natural habitat.

“Garden Party” spotlights Hawaii’s unique and exceptional gardens. Call 529-4808 or email features@staradvertiser.com.