Question: What fern was the inspiration for a legendary zoophyte that was once believed to grow sheep as its fruit?
Context: Pohole, also known as hō'i'o is an edible fiddlehead fern eaten in Hawaiian cuisine salad.  The salads are made the unfurled fronds of a Diplazium esculentum fern (also known as Athyrium esculentum).  The ferns grow in wet areas of shady valleys.  The fern species Diplazium esculentum is believed to have been introduced and naturalized in Hawaii and was first reported collected in 1910.  The fern also has medicinal uses. Platycerium bifurcatum, the elkhorn fern or staghorn fern, is a species of fern native to Java, New Guinea and southeastern Australia, in New South Wales, Queensland and on Lord Howe Island.  It is a bracket epiphyte occurring in and near rainforests. Growing to 90 cm tall by 80 cm broad, it has heart-shaped sterile fronds 12 - long, and arching grey-green fertile fronds which are forked and strap-shaped, and grow up to 90 cm long. In paleontology, a fern spike is the occurrence of abundant fern spores in the fossil record, usually immediately (in a geological sense) after an extinction event.  The spikes are believed to represent a large, temporary increase in the number of ferns relative to other terrestrial plants after the extinction or thinning of the latter, probably because fern dispersal is more rapid over large geographic areas, since single-celled fern spores are more easily distributed by the wind than are seeds.  Fern spikes are most associated with the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, although they have been found at other events such as at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary.  Away from the fossil record, fern spikes have also been observed to occur in response to local extinction events, for instance the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. Asplenium pinnatifidum, commonly known as the lobed spleenwort or pinnatifid spleenwort, is a small fern found principally in the Appalachian Mountains and the Shawnee Hills, growing in rock crevices in moderately acid to subacid strata.  Originally identified as a variety of walking fern ("Asplenium rhizophyllum"), it was classified as a separate species by Thomas Nuttall in 1818.  It is believed to have originated by chromosome doubling in a hybrid between walking fern and mountain spleenwort ("Asplenium montanum"), producing a fertile tetraploid, a phenomenon known as alloploidy; however, the hypothesized parental hybrid has never been located.  It is intermediate in morphology between the parent species: while its leaf blades are long and tapering like that of walking fern, the influence of mountain spleenwort means that the blades are lobed, rather than whole.  "A. pinnatifidum" can itself form sterile hybrids with several other spleenworts. Botrypus virginianus, sometimes called rattlesnake fern is a species of perennial fern in the adders-tongue family.  It is monotypic within the genus "Botrypus", this means that it is the only species included within the genus.  It is called the rattlesnake fern in some parts of North America, due to its habit of growing in places where rattlesnakes are also found.  Rattlesnake fern prefers to grow in rich, moist woods in dense shade and will not tolerate direct sunlight. Coprinellus micaceus is a common species of fungus in the family Psathyrellaceae with a cosmopolitan distribution.  The fruit bodies of the saprobe typically grow in clusters on or near rotting hardwood tree stumps or underground tree roots.  Depending on their stage of development, the tawny-brown mushroom caps may range in shape from oval to bell-shaped to convex, and reach diameters up to 3 cm .  The caps, marked with fine radial grooves that extend nearly to the center, rest atop whitish stems up to 10 cm long.  In young specimens, the entire cap surface is coated with a fine layer of reflective mica-like cells that provide the inspiration for both the mushroom's species name and the common names mica cap, shiny cap, and glistening inky cap.  Although small and with thin flesh, the mushrooms are usually bountiful, as they typically grow in dense clusters.  A few hours after collection, the gills will begin to slowly dissolve into a black, inky, spore-laden liquid—an enzymatic process called "autodigestion" or "deliquescence".  The fruit bodies are edible before the gills blacken and dissolve, and cooking will stop the autodigestion process. Thelypteris palustris, the marsh fern, or eastern marsh fern, is a fern native to eastern North America and across Eurasia.  It prefers to grow in marshy situations in full sun. The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: "Agnus scythicus" or "Planta Tartarica Barometz") is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit.  The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant.  When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died. Cibotium barometz, the golden chicken fern or woolly fern, is a species of tree fern native to parts of China and to the western part of the Malay Peninsula.  The fern's woolly rhizome was thought to be the inspiration for the mythical "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary". Microlepia strigosa, known as hay-scented fern, lace fern, rigid lace fern and palapalai in Hawaiian, is a fern indigenous to the Hawaiian islands and is also native to other parts of the tropics and subtropics including India and Malaysia.  This fern belongs to a group of about seventy "Microlepia" species in the bracken or hay-scented fern family (Dennstaedtiaceae).  There are two indigenous species and a hybrid found in the main Hawaiian Islands.  It is also known by the botanical names: "Davallia hirta", "Davallia setosa", "Davallia strigosa", "Dicksonia kaulfussiana", "Dicksonia strigosa", "Microlepia hirta", "Microlepia setosa", "Stenoloma tenuifolium", "Trichomanes strigosum".  It has coarse, light to medium green fronds which can grow to more than 3 feet long.
Answer: Cibotium barometz