Zhu's Plant Journal 
Compiled reference
Background
This fern belongs to the genus Platycerium in the family Polypodiaceae. Its scientific name is Platycerium veitchii, and the Flora of Australia gives its English common name as silver elkhorn. Staghorn fern growers in Taiwan commonly call it 銀鹿 ("silver staghorn").
It is endemic to Queensland, Australia, occurring in fairly isolated patches in central and eastern Queensland west of the Great Dividing Range. It grows on rocks in the drier parts of open forest or vine scrub.
According to the Flora of Australia, its shield fronds are rounded-kidney-shaped, 20 to 45 cm long, with the upper margin very deeply cut into thin, papery, finger-like lobes up to about 20 cm long; rarely the margin is entire. The fertile fronds are held ascending to somewhat pendulous, in clusters of up to 11, and are 4.5 to 72 cm long; the narrow base tapers gradually before forking into 1 to 8 narrow lobes. Their undersides are white from crowded stellate hairs. The sporangia cover most of the underside of the final segments, often reaching the tip.
It was once treated as a subspecies of Platycerium bifurcatum (P. bifurcatum subsp. veitchii); POWO currently accepts it as a separate species.
There is currently no IUCN Red List assessment for it.
It is not listed in the CITES Appendices.
Sources
- Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew — Plants of the World Online (POWO)： Platycerium veitchii (Underw.) C.Chr.
- Australian Biological Resources Study — Flora of Australia（ALA Profiles）： Bostock, P.D., Spokes, T.M. & Kodela, P.G. Platycerium veitchii（2020 修訂版）
- 中國科學院植物研究所 — iPlant 植物智： 鹿角蕨属 Platycerium
- IUCN — The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species： 搜尋「Platycerium veitchii」
- UNEP-WCMC／CITES 秘書處 — Species+： Platycerium — 查詢
My own observations
Cultivation
The names "Wild", "Auburn River" and "silver staghorn" (銀鹿) used here are the informal names used in Taiwan or among staghorn fern growers.
Wild, Auburn River and the veitchii family
This page is mainly about individual plants of Platycerium veitchii and the wider group they belong to. The plants growers currently call veitchii Wild or veitchii Auburn River are, I believe, different individuals within one group inside P. veitchii, but overall they all belong to the veitchii family.
This veitchii Wild
The plant shown here was originally acquired under the name veitchii Wild. I have grown it for about three years and it is now mature. Its features are very clear, and its fertile fronds are not very long, which makes it very attractive and really shows off the fine, pointed tips of its shield fronds.
Take care in summer
In my experience, these fine-tipped silver staghorns need extra care in summer. Some individuals get yellowing frond tips in summer, and the growing point is also more likely to shrink back. Some of the young plants I raised myself from purchased gametophytes even got weaker and weaker at the growing point over summer, clearly not coping well. So if they are kept in full sun, their growth is easily held back.
Growing
When I grow them, I keep the sphagnum moss slightly on the drier side rather than too wet, so the plant goes through intermittent wet–dry cycles, and I give them strong diffused light. If growing conditions are good and the plant is well fed, mature plants take on a really beautiful form in autumn and winter: plants about two years old already show clearly fine-tipped crowns, and plants of three to four years are more mature still and show the form they should.