54 articles
Marattiaceae
Marattiaceae, the only living family of the fern order Marattiales, six tropical eusporangiate genera (Angiopteris, Christensenia, Danaea, Eupodium, Marattia, Ptisana), sister to leptosporangiate ferns, with a rich fossil record including the extinct Psaroniaceae stem group.
Mating system
Mating system, in biology, the pattern of self-fertilization versus outcrossing in a population. Key in plants and ferns: Fisher's 50% selfing advantage, inbreeding depression, bimodal outcrossing rates, antheridiogen sex control.
Mating systems and population genetics of fern reproduction
The mating systems of ferns describe how hermaphroditic gametophytes self, inbreed, or outcross; most homosporous ferns predominantly outcross, contrary to the textbook image of habitual selfing.
Montane and alpine fern ecology
Montane and alpine fern ecology is the study of how elevation filters ferns, whose richness peaks in humid mid-elevation cloud forests and falls toward cold summits.
Ophioglossaceae
Ophioglossaceae, the adder's tongue fern family (Martinov, 1820), are eusporangiate ferns with trophophore and sporophore frond segments, subterranean mycorrhizal gametophytes, and record chromosome counts up to 1440 in Ophioglossum reticulatum.
Phlebodium aureum
Phlebodium aureum (golden polypody, blue star fern; syn. Polypodium aureum) is an epiphytic Polypodiaceae fern native from the southeastern USA to South America, with golden-scaled creeping rhizomes, blue-green pinnatifid fronds, allotetraploid hybrid origin, and common houseplant use.
Pinnation
Pinnation, also called pinnate division, is the feather-like arrangement of leaflets (pinnae, pinnules) along a central rachis; degrees run from once-pinnate to bipinnate, tripinnate, and pinnatifid, and are primary fern identification characters.
Polyphlebium venosum
Polyphlebium venosum (R.Br.) Copel., veined bristle fern or veined filmy fern, a Hymenophyllaceae filmy fern of SE Australia and New Zealand; translucent fronds, trumpet-shaped indusia, epiphytic on Dicksonia antarctica; basionym Trichomanes venosum R.Br. 1810.
Polypodiales
Polypodiales, the polypod ferns, is the largest order of leptosporangiate ferns in class Polypodiopsida, about 82% of fern species, with six PPG suborders and a cavitation-catapult annulus for spore release.
Prothallus
Prothallus (plural prothalli): the small, green, heart-shaped free-living gametophyte of ferns, bearing antheridia and archegonia; homosporous ferns allow gametophytic selfing, and fertilization requires water for flagellate sperm.
Pteridomania
Pteridomania, or fern fever, was the Victorian passion for collecting and growing ferns that swept Britain between 1837 and 1914, coined by Charles Kingsley in 1855.
Salviniales
Salviniales (water ferns, Hydropteridales) is an order of about 70 heterosporous aquatic fern species in Marsileaceae and Salviniaceae, including Salvinia and Azolla, with sporocarps and rice biofertilizer use.
Selaginella lepidophylla
Selaginella lepidophylla, the resurrection plant or false rose of Jericho, is a Chihuahuan desert lycophyte that survives >95% water loss for decades, curling into a ball when dry and reviving on rehydration.
Shade tolerance
Shade tolerance is a plant's capacity to survive and grow at low light, defined as the minimum light for survival. Key traits include low light compensation points, high leaf mass per area, and conservative growth, contrasting with shade avoidance.
Spore dispersal in ferns
Spore dispersal in ferns is how haploid spores travel from the parent plant to new sites, ejected by a sporangium cavitation catapult at about 10 meters per second.
Spore dormancy and germination in ferns
Spore dormancy and germination in ferns describe how released spores persist, sometimes over 50 years, until light, temperature, and moisture allow germination into a gametophyte.
Sporocarp (ferns)
A sporocarp is a hardened, nut-like reproductive body of aquatic ferns such as Marsilea and Azolla, enclosing spores and able to germinate after 100 years of dormancy.
Tender and indoor fern cultivation
Tender and indoor fern cultivation covers growing tropical ferns such as Boston ferns and maidenhairs in homes and glasshouses, where humidity around 40–50% matters most, with ferns second only among foliage plants in US sales.
Tree fern cultivation
Tree fern cultivation is the horticulture of arborescent ferns, grown for their fibrous trunks and crowns of large fronds, with care centered on the trunk and crown.
Tree fern forest ecology
Tree fern forest ecology is the study of forests where tree ferns dominate, as in New Zealand and Australia, where they filter seedlings, host epiphytes, and colonize after disturbance.
Understory
Understory: the forest vegetation layer beneath the canopy, including shrubs, herbs, ferns, and bryophytes; shaped by overstory light, buffers microclimate, drives regeneration, nutrient cycling, and carbon storage.
Vegetative reproduction in ferns
Vegetative reproduction in ferns is asexual reproduction without spores, using structures such as creeping rhizomes, frond-tip buds, bulbils, root buds, and gametophyte gemmae to grow identical new plants.
Wardian case
Wardian case, invented by Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1829, a sealed wood-and-glass plant transporter and terrarium forerunner that enabled global plant transfer, including tea, rubber, and cinchona, from 1833 until the 1960s.
Willard Nelson Clute
Willard Nelson Clute (1869–1950), American botanist and pteridologist, co-founder of the American Fern Society, editor of the Fern Bulletin and American Botanist, author of Our Ferns in their Haunts.