Enough Java Fern ("Philippine")?

[Slaigar]

Hello All,
Around the first week of September I began to strip my the wounded leaves of my Java Fern 'Philippine'. The leaves were damaged from me taking it from the original pot, from my Zebra loaches placing holes everywhere and from an infestation of algae. It took me awhile, but I ended up with 25+ leaves that I detached from the plants.

The original plants looked quite bare afterwords. I saved the leaves and hung them on a fishing line inside the aquarium, similar in a way that you would hang clothes. This was just to make sure that would not float around. After 30 days, all the leaves had plantlets growing from them. Today I gathered them to see how many:


There is probably well over 50 plantlets in the picture! I actually added some more to after the photo was taken, making the total around 70+. I pretty much stopped counting after awhile. This variety has been highly productive when the leaves are placed in adverse conditions. Anyone with the variety and a few leaves to sacrifice should try it .

Note: I don't know if the fancier varieties ('Windeløv', 'Tropica', 'Red', etc) are able to reproduce in the fashion, so don't be ripping off your leaves yet!
If anyone is certain which varieties can reproduce in this fashion, post it!

[stormhawk]

I've got broad leaf and regular java fern sprouting out of nowhere on the edges of dead leaves. Growth is rather slow though. Never could keep Windelov alive for long. I've no idea why this is so.

[nonamethefish]

Windelov should work for this method, and seems to produce many more plantlets as they grow on the frindges of the leaves. Windelov doesn't seem to do very well for me as far as growing large and bushy goes however.

Tropica will not work...requires rhizome division.

What do you plan to do with all these plantlets? :wink:

[Slaigar]

I never expected that Windeløv would reproduce in that fashion. Next time I see it, I will be sure grab it and other varieties available. I do not like the regular Java Fern but the varieties seem quite interesting.

The excess plants will go FOC or trade to board members. But of course, still got to wait for them to grow and also for fair weather. I might make a stop at Aquabid too- got to fund this hobby and school .

[TanVincent]

Hi,

I had Java Fern Tropica sprouting plantlets on the side of almost dead leaves which was floating on the water surface for weeks.

I think all Java Fern has the ability to propagate via different means, namely, rhizome division, spores, plantlets on edges of leaves and I forgot what is the last one

Anyways, as a conclusion, Java ferns are absolute stunners

Cheers
Vincent

[budak]

Ferns usually reproduce via spores, which are wind-or water-borne, and develop into gametophytes known as a prothallus (which looks like a thalloid liverwort) where sperm and egg combine. It would be interesting to see how the prothalloid form of java fern is like.

[nonamethefish]

Hi,

I had Java Fern Tropica sprouting plantlets on the side of almost dead leaves which was floating on the water surface for weeks.

I think all Java Fern has the ability to propagate via different means, namely, rhizome division, spores, plantlets on edges of leaves and I forgot what is the last one

Anyways, as a conclusion, Java ferns are absolute stunners

Cheers
Vincent

But these became normal java fern correct?

[budak]

I doubt they will become "regular" java fern, since the plantlets are genetic clones of the parent, and the strain seems "fixed." But regular java fern is really a misnomer. The Tropica staff at Aquarama told me they found dozens of different varieties of Microsoum pteropus (presumbably they did spore analysis for ID) all over East Asia. Such a widely-dispersed species will undoubtedly display disparate phenotypes. The role of hybridisation in determining the speciation of this group would be an interesting area to explore.

[nonamethefish]

Hmmm...I've heard that one of the reasons Tropica is so rare is that the only way to propagate is by rhizome division...that plantlets will become normal java fern.

Maybe a myth to drive up prices?

[Slaigar]

That is weird, I would think that only sexual reproduction would bring on variation within a species. Maybe it was assumed that asexual reproduction in the Tropica variety was rare.

On an update with the lil' ferns, they are all shoved into my power filter (light gets through still). Later when I redo my 65g, they will be tied to rocks.

[budak]

Ferns are a bit atypical, actually. What is known is that many species are actually the result of natural (haploid) hybrids that were first sterile (and could only spread asexually), but later became fertile due to polyploidisation during mitosis. And because a fern can be polyploid (more than 2 sets of paired chromosomes), there is much more genetic alphabet soup for the plant to work with and "spontaneous" variants can arise from one plant (without sex) as a result of mitotic juggling.

[Slaigar]

Budak, as always, very insightful! Currently I am just learning these terms in a Biology class. Just finished Kingdom animalia and now we are on to origins of plants. Out of everything we have done so far, this is probably the only part that interests me!

[budak]

Two books I recommend for amateur botanist wannabee budaks are:

In Praise of Plants by Francis Halle (Timber Press) - this is a celebratory book by a botanist of tropical flora. About how plants have been undervalued (even by biologists) and how different they are both genotypically and phenotypically from animals. The plasticity, vibrancy and dynamicism of plants is illustrated throughout the book, which rarely allows biological jargon to deter from the clear, heady facts.

The Evolutionary Biology of Plants by Karl J. Niklas (Uni. of Chicago Press) - an erudite (if somewhat heavy-going) discussion on the origins of different botanical pathways and milestones, from the development of eukaryotes, photosynthesis and multicellularism to sex, spores and seeds. It's also a good textbook on evolution, dealing with how the theory fits (or doesn't quite) with explanations for plant phylogeny, especially with regard to the viability of mutations and hybrids.

The latest issue of Natural History (the mag by the American Museum of Natural History) has a soso articles of ferns... Marsilea drummoldi is mentioned as well, as being the cause of the demise of some poor pioneers.