Ferns – Curious Lifecycles and Remarkable Biodiversity
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California's Native Ferns
CALIFORNIA’S NATIVE FERNS A survey of our most common ferns and fern relatives Native ferns come in many sizes and live in many habitats • Besides living in shady woodlands and forests, ferns occur in ponds, by streams, in vernal pools, in rock outcrops, and even in desert mountains • Ferns are identified by producing fiddleheads, the new coiled up fronds, in spring, and • Spring from underground stems called rhizomes, and • Produce spores on the backside of fronds in spore sacs, arranged in clusters called sori (singular sorus) Although ferns belong to families just like other plants, the families are often difficult to identify • Families include the brake-fern family (Pteridaceae), the polypody family (Polypodiaceae), the wood fern family (Dryopteridaceae), the blechnum fern family (Blechnaceae), and several others • We’ll study ferns according to their habitat, starting with species that live in shaded places, then moving on to rock ferns, and finally water ferns Ferns from moist shade such as redwood forests are sometimes evergreen, but also often winter dormant. Here you see the evergreen sword fern Polystichum munitum Note that sword fern has once-divided fronds. Other features include swordlike pinnae and round sori Sword fern forms a handsome coarse ground cover under redwoods and other coastal conifers A sword fern relative, Dudley’s shield fern (Polystichum dudleyi) differs by having twice-divided pinnae. Details of the sori are similar to sword fern Deer fern, Blechnum spicant, is a smaller fern than sword fern, living in constantly moist habitats Deer fern is identified by having separate and different looking sterile fronds and fertile fronds as seen in the previous image. -
Information and Care Instructions Mother Fern
Information and Care Instructions Mother Fern Quick Reference Botanical Name - Asplenium bulbiferum Detailed Care Exposure - Shade to bright, indirect Your Mother Fern was grown in a plastic pot. Depending on the item, it may then have been Indoor Placement - Bright location but not in direct afternoon sun transplanted into a decorative pot before sale or simply “dropped” into a container while still in the USDA Hardiness - Zone 10a to 11 plastic pot. Inside Temperature - 50-70˚F WATERING Min Outside Temperature - 30˚F 1. Let the top of the soil dry out slightly before Plant Type - Evergreen Fern watering; check frequently, especially if kept in a hot, dry spot. Mother Ferns like to be kept evenly moist, Watering - Allow soil to dry out slightly before watering. Do not allow but not soggy. the pot to sit in standing water for more than a few minutes 2. When watering, use the recommended amount of water for your pot size (See Quick Reference Guide) Water Amount Used - 4” Pot = 1/3 cup of water poured directly on the soil. In order not to damage 6 1/2” Pot = 1 1/4 cups of water your furniture, countertop or floor, place your Mother Fertilizing - Fertilize monthly Fern in a saucer, bowl or sink when watering. Allow the water to drain for 5 minutes. Do not allow the soil to sit in water for any more than 5 minutes or damage to the roots may occur. Avoid continuous use of softened water as the sodium in it can build up to damaging levels in the soil. -
Ferns of the National Forests in Alaska
Ferns of the National Forests in Alaska United States Forest Service R10-RG-182 Department of Alaska Region June 2010 Agriculture Ferns abound in Alaska’s two national forests, the Chugach and the Tongass, which are situated on the southcentral and southeastern coast respectively. These forests contain myriad habitats where ferns thrive. Most showy are the ferns occupying the forest floor of temperate rainforest habitats. However, ferns grow in nearly all non-forested habitats such as beach meadows, wet meadows, alpine meadows, high alpine, and talus slopes. The cool, wet climate highly influenced by the Pacific Ocean creates ideal growing conditions for ferns. In the past, ferns had been loosely grouped with other spore-bearing vascular plants, often called “fern allies.” Recent genetic studies reveal surprises about the relationships among ferns and fern allies. First, ferns appear to be closely related to horsetails; in fact these plants are now grouped as ferns. Second, plants commonly called fern allies (club-mosses, spike-mosses and quillworts) are not at all related to the ferns. General relationships among members of the plant kingdom are shown in the diagram below. Ferns & Horsetails Flowering Plants Conifers Club-mosses, Spike-mosses & Quillworts Mosses & Liverworts Thirty of the fifty-four ferns and horsetails known to grow in Alaska’s national forests are described and pictured in this brochure. They are arranged in the same order as listed in the fern checklist presented on pages 26 and 27. 2 Midrib Blade Pinnule(s) Frond (leaf) Pinna Petiole (leaf stalk) Parts of a fern frond, northern wood fern (p. -
Lichens of Alaska's South Coast
United States Department of Agriculture Lichens of Alaska’s South Coast Forest Service R10-RG-190 Alaska Region Reprint April 2014 WHAT IS A LICHEN? Lichens are specialized fungi that “farm” algae as a food source. Unlike molds, mildews, and mushrooms that parasitize or scavenge food from other organisms, the fungus of a lichen cultivates tiny algae and / or blue-green bacteria (called cyanobacteria) within the fabric of interwoven fungal threads that form the body of the lichen (or thallus). The algae and cyanobacteria produce food for themselves and for the fungus by converting carbon dioxide and water into sugars using the sun’s energy (photosynthesis). Thus, a lichen is a combination of two or sometimes three organisms living together. Perhaps the most important contribution of the fungus is to provide a protective habitat for the algae or cyanobacteria. The green or blue-green photosynthetic layer is often visible between two white fungal layers if a piece of lichen thallus is torn off. Most lichen-forming fungi cannot exist without the photosynthetic partner because they have become dependent on them for survival. But in all cases, a fungus looks quite different in the lichenized form compared to its free-living form. HOW DO LICHENS REPRODUCE? Lichens sexually reproduce with fruiting bodies of various shapes and colors that can often look like miniature mushrooms. These are called apothecia (Fig. 1) and contain spores that germinate and Figure 1. Apothecia, fruiting grow into the fungus. Each bodies fungus must find the right photosynthetic partner in order to become a lichen. Lichens reproduce asexually in several ways. -
Ordovician Land Plants and Fungi from Douglas Dam, Tennessee
PROOF The Palaeobotanist 68(2019): 1–33 The Palaeobotanist 68(2019): xxx–xxx 0031–0174/2019 0031–0174/2019 Ordovician land plants and fungi from Douglas Dam, Tennessee GREGORY J. RETALLACK Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA. *Email: gregr@uoregon. edu (Received 09 September, 2019; revised version accepted 15 December, 2019) ABSTRACT The Palaeobotanist 68(1–2): Retallack GJ 2019. Ordovician land plants and fungi from Douglas Dam, Tennessee. The Palaeobotanist 68(1–2): xxx–xxx. 1–33. Ordovician land plants have long been suspected from indirect evidence of fossil spores, plant fragments, carbon isotopic studies, and paleosols, but now can be visualized from plant compressions in a Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian or 460 Ma) sinkhole at Douglas Dam, Tennessee, U. S. A. Five bryophyte clades and two fungal clades are represented: hornwort (Casterlorum crispum, new form genus and species), liverwort (Cestites mirabilis Caster & Brooks), balloonwort (Janegraya sibylla, new form genus and species), peat moss (Dollyphyton boucotii, new form genus and species), harsh moss (Edwardsiphyton ovatum, new form genus and species), endomycorrhiza (Palaeoglomus strotheri, new species) and lichen (Prototaxites honeggeri, new species). The Douglas Dam Lagerstätte is a benchmark assemblage of early plants and fungi on land. Ordovician plant diversity now supports the idea that life on land had increased terrestrial weathering to induce the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in the sea and latest Ordovician (Hirnantian) -
Seedless Plants Key Concept Seedless Plants Do Not Produce Seeds 2 but Are Well Adapted for Reproduction and Survival
Seedless Plants Key Concept Seedless plants do not produce seeds 2 but are well adapted for reproduction and survival. What You Will Learn When you think of plants, you probably think of plants, • Nonvascular plants do not have such as trees and flowers, that make seeds. But two groups of specialized vascular tissues. plants don’t make seeds. The two groups of seedless plants are • Seedless vascular plants have specialized vascular tissues. nonvascular plants and seedless vascular plants. • Seedless plants reproduce sexually and asexually, but they need water Nonvascular Plants to reproduce. Mosses, liverworts, and hornworts do not have vascular • Seedless plants have two stages tissue to transport water and nutrients. Each cell of the plant in their life cycle. must get water from the environment or from a nearby cell. So, Why It Matters nonvascular plants usually live in places that are damp. Also, Seedless plants play many roles in nonvascular plants are small. They grow on soil, the bark of the environment, including helping to form soil and preventing erosion. trees, and rocks. Mosses, liverworts, and hornworts don’t have true stems, roots, or leaves. They do, however, have structures Vocabulary that carry out the activities of stems, roots, and leaves. • rhizoid • rhizome Mosses Large groups of mosses cover soil or rocks with a mat of Graphic Organizer In your Science tiny green plants. Mosses have leafy stalks and rhizoids. A Journal, create a Venn Diagram that rhizoid is a rootlike structure that holds nonvascular plants in compares vascular plants and nonvas- place. Rhizoids help the plants get water and nutrients. -
Characteristics of Fungi 1. Thallus
CHARACTERISTICS OF FUNGI 1. THALLUS ORGANIZATION Except some unicellular forms (e.g. yeasts, Synchytrium). The fungal body is a thallus called mycelium. The mycelium is an interwoven mass of thread-like hyphae (Sing., hypha). Hyphae may be septate (with cross wall) and aseptate (without cross wall). Some fungi are dimorphic that found as both unicellular and mycelial forms e.g. Candida albicans. 1 2. DIFFERENT FORMS OF MYCELIUM (a) Plectenchyma (fungal tissue): In a fungal mycelium, hyphae organized loosely or compactly woven to form a tissue called plectenchyma. It is two types: i. Prosenchyma or Prosoplectenchyma: In these fungal tissue hyphae are loosely interwoven lying more or less parallel to each other. ii. Pseudoparenchyma or paraplectenchyma: In these fungal tissue hyphae are compactly interwoven looking like a parenchyma in cross-section. (b) Sclerotia (Gr. Skleros=haid): These are hard dormant bodies consist of compact hyphae protected by external thickened hyphae. Each Sclerotium germinates into a mycelium, on return of favourable condition, e.g., Penicillium. 2 (c) Rhizomorphs: They are root-like compactly interwoven hyphae with distinct growing tip. They help in absorption and perennation (to tide over the unfavourable periods), e.g., Armillaria mellea. 3. NUTRITION The fungi lack chlorophyll. Therefore, they cannot synthesize their own food. Depending on from where and how they get nutrition, fungi are of following types: (a) Saprotrophs (= saprobes): They obtain food from dead and decaying organic matter. They secrete digesting enzymes to outside which digest the substratum and then absorb nutrients, e.g., Mucor, Rhizopus (bread mould) etc. (b) Parasitic: They obtain food from living. -
Evolution of Land Plants P
Chapter 4. The evolutionary classification of land plants The evolutionary classification of land plants Land plants evolved from a group of green algae, possibly as early as 500–600 million years ago. Their closest living relatives in the algal realm are a group of freshwater algae known as stoneworts or Charophyta. According to the fossil record, the charophytes' growth form has changed little since the divergence of lineages, so we know that early land plants evolved from a branched, filamentous alga dwelling in shallow fresh water, perhaps at the edge of seasonally-desiccating pools. The biggest challenge that early land plants had to face ca. 500 million years ago was surviving in dry, non-submerged environments. Algae extract nutrients and light from the water that surrounds them. Those few algae that anchor themselves to the bottom of the waterbody do so to prevent being carried away by currents, but do not extract resources from the underlying substrate. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, together with CO2 and sunlight, are all taken by the algae from the surrounding waters. Land plants, in contrast, must extract nutrients from the ground and capture CO2 and sunlight from the atmosphere. The first terrestrial plants were very similar to modern mosses and liverworts, in a group called Bryophytes (from Greek bryos=moss, and phyton=plants; hence “moss-like plants”). They possessed little root-like hairs called rhizoids, which collected nutrients from the ground. Like their algal ancestors, they could not withstand prolonged desiccation and restricted their life cycle to shaded, damp habitats, or, in some cases, evolved the ability to completely dry-out, putting their metabolism on hold and reviving when more water arrived, as in the modern “resurrection plants” (Selaginella). -
The Ferns and Their Relatives (Lycophytes)
N M D R maidenhair fern Adiantum pedatum sensitive fern Onoclea sensibilis N D N N D D Christmas fern Polystichum acrostichoides bracken fern Pteridium aquilinum N D P P rattlesnake fern (top) Botrychium virginianum ebony spleenwort Asplenium platyneuron walking fern Asplenium rhizophyllum bronze grapefern (bottom) B. dissectum v. obliquum N N D D N N N R D D broad beech fern Phegopteris hexagonoptera royal fern Osmunda regalis N D N D common woodsia Woodsia obtusa scouring rush Equisetum hyemale adder’s tongue fern Ophioglossum vulgatum P P P P N D M R spinulose wood fern (left & inset) Dryopteris carthusiana marginal shield fern (right & inset) Dryopteris marginalis narrow-leaved glade fern Diplazium pycnocarpon M R N N D D purple cliff brake Pellaea atropurpurea shining fir moss Huperzia lucidula cinnamon fern Osmunda cinnamomea M R N M D R Appalachian filmy fern Trichomanes boschianum rock polypody Polypodium virginianum T N J D eastern marsh fern Thelypteris palustris silvery glade fern Deparia acrostichoides southern running pine Diphasiastrum digitatum T N J D T T black-footed quillwort Isoëtes melanopoda J Mexican mosquito fern Azolla mexicana J M R N N P P D D northern lady fern Athyrium felix-femina slender lip fern Cheilanthes feei net-veined chain fern Woodwardia areolata meadow spike moss Selaginella apoda water clover Marsilea quadrifolia Polypodiaceae Polypodium virginanum Dryopteris carthusiana he ferns and their relatives (lycophytes) living today give us a is tree shows a current concept of the Dryopteridaceae Dryopteris marginalis is poster made possible by: { Polystichum acrostichoides T evolutionary relationships among Onocleaceae Onoclea sensibilis glimpse of what the earth’s vegetation looked like hundreds of Blechnaceae Woodwardia areolata Illinois fern ( green ) and lycophyte Thelypteridaceae Phegopteris hexagonoptera millions of years ago when they were the dominant plants. -
Mosses and Lichens
Chapter 9 Plants That Aren’t “Plants”: Mosses and Lichens Clayton Newberry Department of Biological Sciences 4505 Maryland Parkway Box 454004 Las Vegas, NV 89154-4004 [email protected] Clayton Newberry is a graduate student at University of Nevada at Las Vegas. He received his B.S. in general botany from Brigham Young University and his M.S. in lichenology from Brigham Young University. He is currently working on his Ph.D. at University of Nevada at Las Vegas. His interests include bryophyte systematics and bryophyte floristics in western North America. Reprinted From: Newberry, C. 2004. Plants that aren’t “plants”: Mosses and lichens. Pages 179-197, in th Tested studies for laboratory teaching, Volume 25 (M. A. O’Donnell, Editor). Proceedings of the 25 Workshop/Conference of the Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE), 414 pages. - Copyright policy: http://www.zoo.utoronto.ca/able/volumes/copyright.htm Although the laboratory exercises in ABLE proceedings volumes have been tested and due consideration has been given to safety, individuals performing these exercises must assume all responsibility for risk. The Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) disclaims any liability with regards to safety in connection with the use of the exercises in its proceedings volumes. © 2004 Clayton Newberry Association for Biology Laboratory Education (ABLE) ~ http://www.zoo.utoronto.ca/able 179 180 Mosses and lichens Contents Introduction....................................................................................................................180 -
Lichens of the National Forests in Alaska
Lichens of the National Forests in Alaska United States Forest Service R10-RG-170 Department of Alaska Region August 2006 Agriculture What is a Lichen? You can think of lichens as fungi that have discovered farm- ing. Instead of parasitizing or scavenging other organisms for a living (such as molds, mildews, mushrooms), lichen fungi cultivate tiny algae and/or blue-green bacteria (called cyanobacteria) within the fabric of interwoven fungal threads that form the lichen body (or thallus). The algae and cyano- bacteria produce food for the fungus by converting the sun’s energy into sugars through photosynthesis. Perhaps the most important contribution of the fungus is to provide a protective habitat for the algae or cyanobacteria. Thus, lichens are a combination of two or three organisms that live together inti- mately. The green or blue-green photosynthetic layer is often visible between two white fungal layers if a piece of lichen thallus is torn off. In some cases, the fungus and the photosynthetic partner that together make the lichen may be found living separately in nature. However, many lichen-forming fungi cannot exist by themselves because they have become dependent on their photosynthetic partners for survival. But in all cases, a fungus looks quite different in the lichenized form compared to its free-living form. How do Lichens Reproduce? Lichens sexually reproduce with fruiting bodies of various colors that can look like miniature mushrooms. These are called apothecia (Fig. 1) and contain spores that germinate and grow into the fungus. This fungus must find the right photosynthetic partner in order to become a lichen. -
Havens for Wildlife
)"7&/4'038*-%-*'& 4FDUJPO# .PTTFT -JWFSXPSUTBOE'FSOT This sheet explains what mosses, liverworts and Liverworts ferns are, where they occur and guidelines on how Liverworts are similar to to care for them in a burial ground. mosses but tend to be The earliest land plants were related to ferns and leafy and are less common. mosses. They started life growing on the edge of lakes Liverworts are mostly found and rivers 400 million years ago. Today most ferns, in woodland and by streams mosses and liverworts still need to grow in moist or rivers but can also be found places. on shady stones and damp soil in burial grounds. They are With our damp climate many burial sites prove ideal for strange, distinctive looking ferns, mosses and liverworts, particularly in the western plants and worth looking at areas of Britain and Ireland. closely or photographing their Adder’s-tongue Fern intricate shapes and subtle colours. MOSSES AND LIVERWORTS Mosses and liverworts are known as FERNS ‘bryophytes’. They are small, green plants *OUIFDPPM XFUDMJNBUFPGUIF6,UIFSFBSFUZQFTPG which do not have !owers or seeds but fern. Look out for ferns on west or north facing walls produce spores instead. There are over in particular. The shady areas of burial grounds, and 1000 di"erent species of bryophyte in under trees, where grass cutters don’t reach, will also UIF6,BOEUIFZUFOEUPCFGPVOEJO be places where ferns can !ourish undisturbed. sheltered, damp places as most of them cannot survive drying out. Few mosses An amazing fact about ferns is that once established PSMJWFSXPSUTIBWF&OHMJTIOBNFTBOEB they can survive in quite dry places, such as walls.