Lecanopteris sinuosa from spores

Hi Corky,

These are supposed to be easy to grow out from spores.

Currently, have some peat cooling down from being heated up to steamy in a microwave oven.

The peat is heated up to kill any random fern spores that naturally occur in peat moss.

Once cool, a layer of the microwaved peat, say an inch or so, will be placed on top of some well draining media, something like half peat/half sand or perlite.

Then the pots will be sealed away in a ziplock bag under fairly bright light in the basement, until new green growth occurs.

The growing ant ferns can be kept in the bags or placed under a propagation dome, until the ferns are big enough to be separated out into pots of their own.

These ferns have shallow root systems and their rhizomes spread outward on top of the media surface.

Germination of spores is supposedly very good and the ferns are very easy to keep in cultivation.

Will take some pics later and post them here.

Cheers,

dvg

These ferns are native to SE Asia, so they can tolerate the warmer temps.

In your clear containers under fluorescent lights, they should be humid and happy.

The temps in our basement won't be getting too much warmer than 24C when the lights are on.

If your ant fern is happy in your home, the spores should be too.

dvg

Here is a pic of some of those Lecanopteris sinuosa spores that were sown, next to a couple kernels of short grain brown rice.



And here is a closer look at the spores themselves, or at least what was sown.



The spores were spread over the surfaces of two 5" pots and are now sealed in ziplock bags.

Will update in two or three weeks when the gametophyte stage or the prothallus stages are reached.

Still new to and learning the terminology with regards to ferns, so feel free to correct me where i've erred.


dvg

Yes, they are indeed interesting in how they go about their business..

...the following chart diagrams can help take some of the confusion out of the otherwise cryptic life cycle terminology.

goo.gl/images/ETEqEC

goo.gl/images/FvfQgV

www.google.ca/search?q=lifecycle_polypodium1361993125178&oq=lifecycle_polypodium1361993125178&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i60l3.1957j0j7&client=ms-android-rogers-ca&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=tucrD0aftz9tSM:


dvg

Had another peek at the ant fern spore pots and have spotted at least nine sprouts in the pot that last had one.

The other pot had no visible sprouts and looked to be drier than the sprouted pot.

Added more moisture to that pot and now it has one visible sprout.

Whereas before the initial gametophytes looked like two circles slightly overlapping one another they now remind me of a lime green colored globular shaped cactus seedling.

Keeping the humidity at the correct levels in the bags seems to be a bit of a balancing act.

Humidity has to be high enough to encourage the spores to sprout, but not so wet so as to encourage green algae growth on the pot's surface.

The pot with one ant fern sprout has hardly any algae growth, whilst the more sprouted pot has a few small green algal patches, that will be monitored to see how quick they are to spread out.

Having never grown any ferns out from the spore stage before, this process has been very interesting.

And because these are grown in a sealed  bag/enclosure,  they are pretty much maintenence free, save for the odd misting when the pots look dry or when some premptive action is required to counteract some green baddies that show up.




dvg

They seem to be coming along fine, still growing  in their ziplocked bags.

There are some adult ant ferns, still small, but making inverted tear-shaped , lime-colored leaves.

Have been opening the bags to take pics, taking pics of the developments each month, for the past few months.

Haven't done any fertilizing yet, but might try some soon.


Will try to get some pics posted.

The technique does seem to work well, and might be used successfully for any number of fern spores.


dvg