The habitat of this primitive plant is under waterfalls, or in sandstone gullies or rainforests.

It is often found growing on the base of the King Fern.

[3] The specific epithet truncata refers to the leaf tops, which appear abruptly cut off.

[4] This plant first appeared in scientific literature in 1810 as Psilotum truncatum in the Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, authored by the prolific Scottish botanist, Robert Brown.

On 31 May 2024, Tmesipteris oblanceolata was reported to have been found to contain the largest known eukaryotic genome, with 160 billion base pairs, by comparison more than 50 times larger than the human genome.