Unfinished business: fern babies, Anthurium babies

I am extremely sorry to have to report that the baby Cyrtomium falcatum and Asplenium nidus ferns I started forever ago, as well as half the Anthurium andraeanum seedlings I started half a forever ago, are not going to make it. I'm even more sorry to report that the reason why they didn't make it is really stupid. I got greedy.

But first, a quick recap.

At some point I didn't bother to write down, I brought home some fern spores from work. I put them on wet vermiculite, and in November 2008 I had the beginnings of baby ferns.


Eight months later, in July 2009, they'd developed to the point where there were signs of actual fronds developing, which was pretty exciting.


Meanwhile, I had some seeds form on an Anthurium andraeanum 'Pandola' that I'd bought in spring 2009, and I planted half of them with some Begonia leaf sections I was trying to propagate, and the other half, I planted with the baby ferns. And they developed and grew and all was good. So at this point we've got some developing Cyrtomium, Asplenium, and Anthurium, all in the same container of moist vermiculite.


And then I did something really, really stupid.

I had bought, somewhere in winter or spring 2008, a bunch of seeds of various tropical plants. I was going to plant them, and raise many, many baby plants, and it was going to be fun and awesome and stuff. Unfortunately, I planted the seeds in a plug tray, which I then failed to keep watered, so the seeds didn't sprout.

But I'd remained hopeful, and didn't throw the seeds out, because who knew, maybe they'd still be good for something. Which I apparently found a convincing argument until sometime during the summer of 2009, when I decided that there was no point in hanging on to plug trays full of very dry dirt anymore; if they'd been viable to begin with, surely they no longer were.

Which in retrospect was a really good decision.

However! As I was dumping them out, I noticed the Cordyline fruticosa seeds, which were big enough to be easily picked out of the soil and recovered. And I thought: hey. Maybe I could still plant these. What could it hurt?

The answer turned out to be, everything. It could hurt everything. Because, see, the seeds, when planted in the vermiculite, also introduced some odd little bugs, which I'd never seen before. I also kind of haven't seen them since, or at the time, because they are/were very tiny and semi-transparent and moved around a lot. This is the best picture I was able to get of them:


And this is the scale we're talking about:


So. Trapped in a more or less airtight plastic container with nothing to eat but developing seedlings and . . . um . . . let's call them sporelings, these bugs slowly went about the business of eating what was there to eat, apparently from the roots up. So the tops of the ferns withered, then browned, then collapsed. Patches of the ferns went black and slimy, and the Anthuriums turned sort of a weird bronze color (though they hung in there for quite a while, way longer than the ferns). I dithered for a long time about whether or not to throw the whole thing out, and eventually decided to toss 'em . . . right at about the same time I noticed that the Cordyline seeds were beginning to sprout. (So at least we know they can still be viable after sitting around for a couple years, even if they're totally dry for a six-month stretch there in the middle.) But the Cordylines were also bronze, and kind of stunted-looking, even for seedlings, so out the whole thing went. (No pictures. Too painful.)

So there's the whole tragic tale. I've started over again, with fresh vermiculite and fresh spores (obligingly produced by my own personal Cyrtomium last November, almost like it knew I was going to need them -- maybe I should have gone with "Psychic" for the "person," when I wrote the Cyrtomium falcatum profile), and so maybe in early 2012 I'll have some news on that.

The moral of the story, clearly, is: don't put nonsterile seeds into sterile media if you really value the stuff that's already growing in the sterile media. And insects are bad.

One could also make a case for part of the moral being that ferns are slow, frustrating, and not worth trying to raise from spores, but I'm not going there just yet.

The reader will be relieved to hear that the other half of the Anthurium seedlings, the ones with the Begonias, are still intact. I moved them into a 3-inch pot a week or two ago, because the Begonias were getting too big for the container and I couldn't transplant one without also doing the other, and so far they're doing okay, though I do worry a little.

Picture: Cyrtomium falcatum frond

We had an ice storm on Wednesday, which I'd been looking forward to, but then I spent the last several hours of Wednesday without the internet, which made it suck anyway. I'm having terrible luck with weather this year. The blizzard was not a particularly good storm, plus it led to the plant room panic, and now the ice storm (which was okay, not the best ice storm ever, but not terrible) knocks out the internet for several hours. It's as if bad weather can be inconvenient even when you don't go anywhere or do anything. How is that fair?

We also lost the telephone (We have a landline. The husband also has a cell, but it frightens and angers me in a caveman-encountering-fire kind of way, so I rarely use it.), which is a little scary -- suppose we'd been relying on just the landline, and needed to call 911? Is this a plot by the cell phone companies to slowly kill off all the people who rely solely on their landlines?

But anyway. Which all means that I spent most of yesterday catching up on the internet, and boy was there a lot to catch up on. Among other things, there's DRAMA! at Garden Web. And then also for some reason I spent a lot of time monitor-shopping (browser-shopping? What's the internet equivalent of window-shopping?) at Glasshouse Works, because the husband made me do my taxes (long story), so now I know I have money coming to me at some point and want to spend it. (There's nothing in particular at GHW that I have to have, but I am very intrigued by Dyckia velascana. As well as twenty or thirty other things. Though I will probably not buy all of them, and may not buy any of them.) And what I should have been doing during all that time was watering plants, because . . . on any given day, the odds are about 4 out of 5 that I should be watering plants at some point during it.

Anyway. All of the above is to explain to you why I don't have anything better to show you, post-wise, than just an unfurling Cyrtomium falcatum frond. Though it's a very nice frond. Probably better full-sized, by the way.


So we've got this today, we'll do a Nina picture tomorrow, and then I'll be back on track. I have a particularly weird Nina picture in mind. It should be a big hit with everybody.

Random plant event: Cyrtomium falcatum spores

Some of my plants are better than others about recognizing when they've got a good thing going and trying to take advantage of it. My Cyrtomium falcatum, which has perhaps heard about the baby Cyrtomiums I'm trying to grow from spores, has now begun producing spores of its own, though they're not ready for anything yet. The oldest spores are only just now beginning to turn brown:


This came as sort of a surprise when I first noticed it, though in retrospect I suppose it shouldn't have been: the plant has been with me for a very long time now (Two years and two months), and in that time has been up-potted twice, from a four-inch pot to a six-inch pot to an eight-inch pot. I don't think about this particular plant often because it doesn't give me much trouble, but while I wasn't paying attention, it got a lot bigger.

My plant in January 2008.

The same plant, in November 2009, after two repottings.
So I guess I kind of have to agree with all the people who say that holly ferns are the way to go, if you have to have a fern and it has to be indoors.

Will I try to grow these spores into ferns, when they're ready? Haven't decided yet. It's possible that by the time the previous group is mature enough to transplant, I'll realize that I already have way more of them than I could ever possibly need, want, or get rid of, and don't need more. Also the first batch is taking forever to do anything, which is annoying. Even if I do need more Cyrtomiums, I might not actually need them badly enough to want to fiddle with a container full of vermiculite for two years (or however long it's going to turn out to be). But that decision doesn't have to be made yet.

Random plant event: Anthurium seedlings' leaves and fern progress

There are now at least five sprouting Anthurium seedlings, as of last Tuesday when these pictures were taken. We now have the development of actual, identifiable leaves:

(This is the batch that's in with the Begonia leaf sections. Also, know that any of the pictures in this post can be blown up to much, much larger sizes, if you're wanting to do that.)
(Same group as the previous picture, but facing the opposite direction)

And now a couple of the seeds I planted in the other vermiculite, with the ferns I've been trying to start since forever, are also sprouting:


The one on the left, if you blow the picture up to full size, looks like it has mold growing on it, but that's actually a root. Scared the bejesus out of me the first few times I saw it. And then when I recovered from the shock of that and figured out it was a root, not mold, I realized that I'd had the bejesus scared out of me AND I DIDN'T REMEMBER EATING ANY BEJESUS and had no explanation for how it had gotten into me in the first place, and so I was scared a second time.

It was a pretty rough day.

(For more on bejesus, see Bejesus Quarterly's "What is Bejesus?" page here.)

Meanwhile, since we're here anyway: the ferns are looking fernier, to the point where we can start speculating about the relative Cyrtomium-to-Asplenium ratio of the plants which have developed. I think it's looking like 300:0 at this point: nothing looks like an Asplenium to me. But then, I don't know what either of them are supposed to look like, at this stage of development.


Though there's still nothing here that could make it on its own in a pot yet, there's been quite a bit of progress since the last time we checked in on the ferns, three months ago. This may just be the way it usually works, or it may be because I've added a few balls of time-release Osmocote to the top of the vermiculite to encourage growth. (Or at least that was the theory. For all I know it may have actually set them back. Have I mentioned how I don't exactly know what I'm doing with the ferns?)


I don't know that we're at the point where I can say we'll have baby ferns any day now (though I intend to dust off the old mini-greenhouse and have it standing by, just in case), but we're clearly just right on the verge of something or another.

Unfinished business re: How to Make Your Own Ferns at Home

Last November, I put up a post describing how I had taken spores from an Asplenium nidus and a Cyrtomium falcatum at work, and brought them home and germinated them (or whatever the appropriate verb would be: I'm not sure "germinated" is right if there are no seeds involved) on vermiculite. I don't remember how long ago the actual sowing of the spores would have been, but it was probably a few months before the post, so let's be conservative and say it was September.

In the November post, things had progressed to the point where I had some tiny green dots on the surface of the vermiculite, but nothing at all frondy or leafy yet.

And now:


I still don't have much of anything frondy-leafy. Ferns are horrible, perverse creatures that will not do what I want them to do. But it's obviously bigger than it was in November, and they've grown a lot faster since I put them in a west window (where they get some actual sunlight occasionally), and if you look closely at the pictures, full-size, you can see a couple of things that might be very young fronds, as well as fuzzy white things covering the vermiculite that might well be extremely young roots.


So we might have actual ferns at some point. I mean, these are actual ferns, but -- you know what I mean. Too early to tell whether I have Asplenium, Cyrtomium, or a mix of the two. I'm hoping for more Cyrtomium than Asplenium, because Aspleniums tend not to get along with me for more than about six months.


Is this a practical way to get ferns? Well, that sort of depends on what you consider "practical," I guess. (It also depends on whether or not it ever actually works: it's worth pointing out that it's been almost a year now and I haven't gotten a single fern out of this.) While it's true that this has taken a long time, I've also had to put almost no work into it. So if it's not very immediately gratifying, it's at least not extremely demanding of time and energy, either. Possibly we'd be closer to immediately gratifying if I'd given these guys sunlight earlier.

I'll be back with another update if and when something new happens.

Random plant event: Spores!

Love is in the air, apparently. Or whatever the fern equivalent of love is.

Phlebodium aureum 'Blue Hare.'

Nephrolepis exaltata.

Microsorum musifolium 'Crocodyllus,' newer spores.

Microsorum musifolium 'Crocodyllus,' older spores.

Cyrtomium falcatum.

The very very beginnings of spores on Asplenium nidus. The whitish lines covering the middle half of the leaf will eventually turn brown and shed spores.

[Exceptionally] Pretty pictures: transmitted light -- Part V

(All prior pictures in the transmitted light series can be found here.)

It's that time again, and I have to say, this is my favorite batch to date.

Hippeastrum NOID. Well okay, this picture isn't so much a favorite.

Syngonium podophyllum. Or this one. Though I must note, as I often do, how happy it makes me when even the boring pictures are in focus.

Scindapsus pictus. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Little bit sparkly, little bit blotchy -- this could be cool, maybe, someday.

Neoregelia NOID 'Nuance.' I know it looks like when somebody on TV wears a striped tie, and the pattern gets all strobey and colors start to appear that aren't in the actual tie and you kind of want to look away from it but you can't. But this isn't a technical glitch: the leaf actually looks like this. Really and truly.

Farfugium japonicum 'Crested Leopard.' The interesting part of this one to me is not the round, lighter-colored spots of variegation, but the pattern of the veins in the bulk of the leaf, away from the main veins or the spots.

Strobilanthes dyerianus. And nobody ever even knows about this, because everybody's always so focused on the tops of the leaves. It's tragic, is what it is.

Cyrtomium falcatum. Ferns just have awesome venation.

Stromanthe sanguinea 'Triostar.' I aim for symmetrical photos, most of the time, but occasionally asymmetry is a good thing.

Cordyline fruticosa 'Florica.' A little washed-out, but interesting.

Polyscias balfouriana. I wasn't even expecting anything particularly interesting from this picture when I took it. Getting it home and seeing all the (in-focus!) detail pretty much made my day.

Random plant event: fern gametophytes, or, How to Make Your Own Ferns at Home

I was curious about how difficult it really was to grow ferns indoors from spores, so I took either a frond or a part of a frond from a holly fern (Cyrtomium falcatum) at work and brought it home. I also took some damp toilet paper at work and wiped it on a Asplenium nidus that had formed spores, to collect those (I didn't want to cut off the frond).

When I got these home, I took a smallish (about 6 inches / 15 cm square) clear plastic container, washed it, filled it with vermiculite, and then added water to the vermiculite.

I let the vermiculite and water sit for a minute, and then dumped out the excess water (holding the vermiculite back with my hand).

Then I held the frond above the wet vermiculite and brushed the spores off onto it with my fingers.

I unfolded the toilet paper with the Asplenium spores, and peeled it down to a single layer of paper, and set that down on top of the vermiculite too.

Then I replaced the top back on the tray, stuck it in an out-of-the-way spot where it would be protected from temperature fluctuations and get lots of light (artificial, in this case), and waited.

And now I have this:

Click the picture to enlarge.
It's not, I know, the most exciting image ever. But those little green spots? Those are spores that have become gametophytes. This is encouraging.

Ferns have a very roundabout life cycle, where the spores hit the ground and, under the right conditions, develop into small "gametophytes," which are photosynthetic and exist only to form eggs and sperm (yes, each gametophyte produces both, though usually at different times, so as to avoid self-fertilization). The eggs stay put, but the sperm travels across the moist ground looking for an egg to fertilize. If it finds one, then the two combine to form a new sporophyte, which is the ferny-looking thing that most of us know as a fern. (Though the gametophytes are just as much ferns as the sporophytes, of course.)

We still have a ways to go before I have a bunch of little ferns sporophytes: first the sperm cells have to find some eggs, and then they have to photosynthesize enough to build some fronds before I'll see that anything is different. But still. It's not difficult to do so far, at least. I'll update when something new happens.

Feral Orphan (Cyrtomium falcatum)

This is yet another plant I've talked about at Garden Web previously, owing to the odd circumstances by which it came to me. There are two plants in the picture here: the first one I found growing under one of the tables in the greenhouse at work, and the other one grew spontaneously in a pot of some other fern (I don't remember which for sure, but I want to say a Pteris), and then I took it out, gave it its own pot for a while, and waited. It didn't seem too traumatized by this, so I bought it, brought it home, and introduced it to the other one. Each of the ferns only had about five fronds and looked a little sparse, but together they're more respectable:


It's a frustrating plant to research; the same few facts are repeated over and over without elaboration, and a lot of places don't bother to mention it at all. I was kind of excited to see two Cyrtomiums (some dwarf variety, I think) in our year-end tropicals shipment: they're the first ones I've seen that were actually brought in deliberately to sell.

Mostly what you will learn if you research this plant is:

• It's a popular outdoor fern for shady spots, though there's confusion about where it will grow: one site says zones 7-10, another site says 5-8. Both may be right; I have no idea.
• If you want to buy one, you're better off going to a place that specializes in landscape plants than in houseplants.
• It's the most awesome fern ever!!!11!!!1!!!!!!!eleven!!! for growing indoors, because it tolerates dry air, low light, and gas fumes better than most.
• They like cooler temperatures than most houseplants.
• It reproduces from spores.
• It has shiny, "leathery" (?!) leaves, which are green and look like holly.
• It's not toxic to pets or kids.
• It's originally from Japan.

That's pretty much all there is. Not terribly helpful. No wonder the poor thing feels like it has to fend for itself under the tables, and sneak into the pots of strangers. I mean, you can figure out the leaf color by looking at a picture, but almost everybody mentions it anyway, and if it's a fern, you know it reproduces from spores, because that's part of what makes ferns ferns. Also, saying that the leaflets on a fern known as holly fern resemble holly leaves is almost too stupid to dignify with a mention.¹

Two new fronds emerging

And really, that's all you need to know, in some ways, but let's forge on ahead anyway:

Clearly, any plant that's okay with growing under a greenhouse table isn’t going to be all that picky about light levels, and mine hasn't seemed to be. I have mine in the bathroom, with a smallish fluorescent light on it, and it seems to be just fine with that. It was surprisingly thirsty (actually not all that surprising, because I'd been warned about this by "nanw" at Garden Web), needing water about every third day. Humidity levels fluctuate in the bathroom, but clearly it hasn't encountered anything it can't handle, so that's good, and everybody says they can handle low humidity anyway so it may not need to be in the bathroom in the first place.

The only real issues are temperature and propagation. On this latter point, propagation of ferns from spores is hardly impossible. People do it all the time. But it's a good bit more involved than just cutting a piece off and sticking it in water or soil. You have to have ripe spores, you have to be able to collect them somehow, you have to have some kind of sterile medium to grow them on, and there's potentially a long wait before you get any results. Still: if and when it pays off, it's likely to pay off big, in several baby plants at once, and it doesn't hurt the parent plant to try or make it look ugly, like taking cuttings can. What's more, I suspect that Cyrtomium is probably an easier plant to propagate from spores than other ferns, because I assume that's probably where my plants came from, because that's the simplest way to explain their odd locations. So if I ever get spores, I intend to try this.

Temperature may or may not be a big deal; everybody says these prefer cooler temperatures, but if they're also being grown outside in zone 8, then they're clearly capable of handling warmer. So far, my plant hasn't complained about the situation in the bathroom, which overall tends to be cooler than the rest of the apartment but which heats up whenever somebody takes a shower. So we'll see, but I'm not worried about it.

But that's about all there is. My plant has been admirably consistent so far about producing fronds regularly, even when it'd just been relocated, uprooted, or whatever. It did lose a lot of fronds when I first got it home, but I suspect that was because I spent a lot of time wiping the leaves hard with paper towels: months of dust and pesticide and water spots and so forth had left it covered in something gray and tenacious, which needed multiple washings before I could get it off. I suspect I damaged some fronds in the process. Still, it bounced right back. They're tough little guys. If the look is the sort of thing you like, and you happen to run across one, it's worth picking up.

EDITED 5/13/08: Raised the difficulty level from 2.6 to 3.1 because it's really just not patient at all about droughts.

-

Photo credits: moi.

¹ (But only almost.)