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Re: Growing ferns from spores

> Just curious and ignorant:
> What if you cut off a branch of a mother plant (assuming it's the 
> female form I suppose) with ripe seed and placed it on moist sterile 
> soil, covered it with plastic, and kept it similar conditions as the 
> spores would experience in the forest? Would the spores germinate?
> By the way, how do you tell a male fern from a female if you don't 
> already know which kind you have (assuming a friend gave you some off of 
> their wooded property)?
> -Amy K.

I have seen this done by a friend and on TV and you have described the way it 
is done.

Mature fern fronds will produce spores from the sporangia on their under 
surface. They are those brown spots.

I am ready to be corrected but I do not think that the "Male" or "female fern 
are seperate sexes as such (Monoecious) they have recived those names for 
other reasons (and if named by Carl Linn probably for some amusing sexy 
reason)


There is an  alternation of generation in frn plants. the spore producing 
frond is the sporophyte generation. Spores are not seeds because they are not 
produced by sexual reproduction.

When you get a spore to germinate they will grow in to avery tiny heart 
shaped things called prothallus which bears they sex organs...(usually both 
male and female) The prothallus is the gameteophyte generation.

You will get a great many prothalli growing in your sealed pot and they will 
look like a lot of tiny leaves covering the surface. I cant remember the name 
for the male organs off hand and i am too lazy to look it up but they start 
to produce male gametes now, unlike pollen these little fellows are motile 
and when they are released from the antheridia (memory kicking in now) they 
swim in the moisture on the surface of the soil and prothalli  towards the 
female parts (Gynaecium) on the prothalli. These  will then fertilise the 
female gamete and produce a zygote from which a new frond will grow.

So the male gametes look similar to and behave a lot like sperm. The gametes 
may fertilise the female gamete on the same prothallus or it might fertilise 
a femle part on a neighbouing prothallus.....so getting cross fertilisation.
The latter is most likely as i seem to remember that may ferns are 
protandrous as the antheridia ripen before the female parts so cross 
fertilisation for true sexual reproduction is encouraged.

you will not get the opportunity to be a phytic voyeur and observe this 
pterriphyic sex life because it all takes place on a microscopic level but 
you must ensure that the surace of your growing mdium stays wet by regular 
misting or the surface and resealing with cling film so that the male gametes 
can swim!

I am sure seone else will be able to explain it a little more clearly than 
this!



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Colette Dunkley            gb81@dial.pipex.com
Upton, Wirral, Merseyside, England, L49 4PD
"Cuncta simul fieri vetat irrevocabilis hora"
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