Re: Painted Ferns (pollinating them??)
- To: s*@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU
- Subject: Re: [SG] Painted Ferns (pollinating them??)
- From: P* H*
- Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 05:29:31 EDT
In a message dated 10/06/2000 11:34:20 AM Central Daylight Time,
mlaute@MICRON.NET writes:
<<
I must be dense, because I can't find any information at this site on fern
reproduction. Oddly, article titles are in blue, but they're not
URLs. Margaret L
>>
I looked over the site too and they have made a few changes and some links do
not work any more.
Your going to make me do this my self !!
I will not go into much detail- I am still shaken over the fact that in 10 th
grade Biology I could not at the time grasp the concept of 2n and 1n, it took
me three years before I understood it.
OK-if you look at your fern, the one planted in the garden-sometimes you will
notice small brown or black dots under the leaves or structures that hang
from the fern that look like gills. These dots or gills produce spores.
The spores fall to the ground and in the right location grow into a small
clump of green tissue called a PROTHALLUS this is the structure that produces
the eggs and sperm. ( this is analogous to a flower, with it's pollen and
ovals)
It rains and the sperm are splashed near the female parts, since the sperm is
motel (it can swim) it finds its way to the eggs and fertilizes them and a
new fern grows form this.
That is the simple explanation. The ferns we see and love are called the
sporophyte because they produce the spores.
The Prothallus, the small green thumb nail sized green mat that grows from
the spore is called the gametophy, because it produces the sperm and eggs
(called gametes).
The way new ferns are grown from "Seed" is to collect the spores and sow them
onto a moist but not wet medium, the prothallus's grow into a thick carpet
and you spray them with water and in a few weeks to have many small new ferns.
I hope I did OK. and it is clear.
Paul
