Saint Dale's Blog

I suspect that by now most of you will have purchased your very own tree fern and are falling madly in love with it.   Of course, if you’re a university student like I am, you will know that money doesn’t grow on tree ferns. If you want to collect spores and grow your own for free, then you need to understand the life cycle of a tree fern. A. Mature Sporophyte producing spores from its Sporangia B. Mature Gametophyte C. Young Sporophyte https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/20219695479/ viewed on 15/3/2018 Before we get into the juicy details of tree fern reproduction, there are some terms we need to understand.   A sperm and an egg are called "haploids" because they each contain only one set of unpaired chromosome. Once the two merge to become a zygote, it is called a diploid; it contains two sets of chromosomes (Campbell et al., 2008).   The terms “haploid" and "diploid” are important, so take a moment to let their roots establi...

F ew plants on the planet can match the majestic beauty offered by the tree fern. I was first exposed to tree ferns growing up as a boy in the rainforest near Mission Beach, where they grew thick along the stream banks. It wasn’t until later in life that I fully appreciated these plants, when I saw them used in the winning garden at the 2010 Chelsea Garden show. I was introduced to this garden in the BBC documentary James Wong and the Malaysian Garden . 2010 Winning Garden at the Chelsea Garden Show. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chelsea_2010._(4644673666).jpg Viewed on 7/3/18 Tree Fern Spores https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=80587 Viewed on 7/3/18 You will find some 10,000 species of tree fern (Large & Braggins, 2004) scattered across our globe, in rainforests from South Africa to New Zealand and on our doorstep here in Cairns, Australia. Some of you may have already guessed that tree ferns do not produce a frui...