Fight for Your Right to Grow a Sporophyte

Are you ready to grow your own tree fern? I will be growing a Coin Spotted Tree Fern (Cyathea cooperi) as it is native and well adapted to the wet tropics. 

An uncoiling tree fern frond. Taken on 22/3/18
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Tree_fern_frond_at_Akatarawa.jpg 
Viewed on 22/3/18

Spore Scattered on a sheet of paper.
http://cabinetofcuriosities-greenfingers.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/fern-spore-prints.htm 
Viewed on 22/3/18
Collecting Spores
The easiest way to collect spores is to take a piece of mature frond, with visible sporangia on its underside, and place it on a piece of paper. The spores will be shed onto the paper in a black, brown and yellow powder (Harvey 1993) as the sporangia dry. I would not recommend storing these spores because Cyathea spores can lose their viability after just a few weeks, even when stored in the best conditions (Simabukuro et al. 1998).
 
Sowing Method
Two good mediums to use are peat moss and sphagnum moss (Harvey 1993) because they retain moisture well. Pour boiling water over the medium to kill any fungus spores that are already in the medium. It is important to prevent the germination of other spores as they could crowd out your little gametophytes (Harvey 1993). You are now ready to sprinkle your tree fern spores onto the medium.

Once your spores hit the medium, they will immediately begin to uptake water and their shell will eventually break (Rybczyński & Mikuła, 2011). The C. cooperi spore will start to divide and the rhizoid (basically a hairlike projection anchoring the gametophyte) will start to form (Huckaby & Raghavan, 1980). Once spores are in the container it must be covered with glass or plastic, but still allow for some air space on top.

Keep the medium at about 20 ºC (Hiendlmeyet & Randi, 2007) and out of direct light. Interestingly, a lot of tree fern spore germination is controlled by red light (Rybczyński & Mikuła, 2011) so you can’t keep them in the dark. At 50% natural light, gametophytes will die. Tou should aim for less than 20% natural light (Hiendlmeyet & Randi, 2007). Spores should germinate within 20 days (Hiendlmeyet & Randi, 2007)
Young Tree Fern Gametophytes
http://growingontheedge.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7687
Viewed on 22/3/18

Young Tree Fern Sporophytes
http://growingontheedge.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7687 
Viewed on 22/3/18
Potting On
After a few weeks, you can begin to pick your little sporophytes out of the medium and place them into their own individual containers. The containers should consist of a finely sifted soil. Cover the new containers again in glass or plastic until fronds appear (Harvey, 1993). As the plants age, keep upgrading them into larger pots with more course organic material in the medium. It is important that the mixture drains well. Course river sand and charcoal pieces are helpful for this (Harvey, 1993).

If you follow the above instructions, you will have little tree ferns in no time. With fronds like these, who needs anemones right? 

 
Reference List 

Harvey, R ,1993 Growing Ferns from Spores, Australian National Botanic Gardens and Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, Canberra.

Huckaby C.S & Raghavan, V,  1980, Spore Germination Patterns in the Ferns, Cyathea and    Dicksonia, Department of Botany, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, U.S.A.

Hiendlmeyer, R & Randi , A 2007 Response of spores and young gametophytes of Cyathea delgadii Sternb. (Cyatheaceae) and Blechnum brasiliense Desv. (Blechnaceae) to different light levels. Acta Botanica Brasilica. [online]. 2007, vol.21, pp.909-915.

Rybczyński J.J. &  Mikuła A. 2011 Tree Ferns Biotechnology: From Spores to Sporophytes. In: Kumar A., Fernández H., Revilla M. (eds) Working with Ferns. Springer, New York, NY

Simabukuro, E & Dyer, A & Felippe, G 1998 The Effect of Sterilization and Storage Conditions on the Viability of the Spores of Cyathea Delgadii, American Fern Journal Vol. 88, No. 2, pp. 72-80
 


Comments

  1. Tasmin25 March 2018 at 00:57

    I bet I could grow my own tree fern from your instructions! But what makes the coin spotted tree fern so special in comparison to other tree ferns? Would your instructions work for other tree ferns?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Saint Dale25 March 2018 at 01:15

      Haha it's funny you should ask about Cyathea Cooperi, There will be a future blog post staring our coin spotted friend, so hang-tight!

      Delete

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