Fern. Popular rumor attributes magical power to this plant. It is believed that once a year, on the night of Ivan Kupala, you can see how this plant blooms. Well, if you manage to find and pick a fern flower, you will understand the language of animals and birds, you will gain clairvoyance and find out where the treasures are buried.
Unfortunately, fern bloom is possible only in legends and fairy tales. In fact, ferns reproduce by spores and never bloom. Is it possible that our genetic scientists will be able to cross a rose or another flower with a fern and develop a new variety of plants already endowed with the ability to bloom. Then the prophecy will come true exactly - the person really will understand the language of plants, and he will find the greatest treasure in value. Actually, there was no need to look for him. The treasure is buried in ourselves - this is the knowledge and desire of mankind to learn the laws of nature and being.
Fern - the oldest plant on the planet
Ferns on Earth existed 40 million years ago. Of course, initially they were very different from the evolutionary specimens that are now growing on our blue planet. Ancient ferns were gigantic and looked more like trees than plants. But even now, the species that we call ferns is so diverse that they are only related by the shape of the leaf and the method of reproduction. Nowadays, botanists have more than 10 thousand species of this exotic plant.
The habitat of ferns is huge. Most species prefer forests and marshland. Some species of plants are found high in the mountains, where they cling to the crevices of the rocks. There are ferns that can survive in waterless deserts.
There are also those that grow right on the trees. For such a long period of existence, the plant has adapted to life in the most extreme conditions.
How does plant propagation occur in nature?
To find out how fern propagates, you need to examine its leaf under a microscope.
If you look closely, then in the lower part of the sheet you can see the dark-colored tubercles arranged in rows. They contain small bags in which spores mature. With the help of spores, this plant, preserved from ancient times, propagates. Now you know how fern propagates. It is impossible to see this plant producing the flower stalk in nature - this only exists in folk tales.
Fern bracken
The name “bracken” for this species of ferns did not arise by chance - its leaves are too similar to huge eagle wings. Bracken leaves can reach up to 1.5 m in width and up to 1 meter in height. The plant has healthy substances for health - it contains catechins, flavonoids, phytosterols, carotene, riboflavin and nicotinic acid. Therefore, it is widely used in cooking and pharmaceuticals.
Want to know how bracken fern propagates in order to grow it yourself? The easiest way to do this is in a vegetative way - by digging or acquiring a plant along with thin, cord-like rhizomes. Early spring is the most favorable for transplanting , but a fern transplanted at the end of summer can also take root well.
Also, bracken fern propagates by spores. Their ripening occurs in late July and early September. During this period of time, you can try to wrap the spores from an adult plant and dispel them in a humid place on your site.
The bracken fern is unpretentious in leaving - does not demand top dressing, easily transfers frosts and lack of moisture.
Knowing how the bracken fern propagates, it can be easily grown in its garden plot. The plant is very decorative, unpretentious and has the ability to grow rapidly, which won the hearts of flower growers.
How ferns of Vyatka forests breed
Vyatka forests. Nature here is so pristine and poorly understood that, according to local residents, there is a "bigfoot" here. The left bank of the Vyatka River, where the whole territory is occupied by floodplain meadows and forests, is not particularly affected by agricultural farming. The grass cover of this plot of land is multi-tiered and quite diverse. Not the last place in it belongs to ferns.
Most often in the Vyatka forests there are such species of ferns as a thyroid bug, red-headed cabbage and common bracken.
Whole fern spruce forests occur on land with constantly moist soil. It is amazing how the ferns of the Vyatka forests propagate: openwork fern leaves attach to the spruce and grow without touching the ground. This sight is especially beautiful in the fall, when the leaves of the fern turn yellow and form bizarre lace woven by nature against the background of green spruce.
Methods of reproduction of fern-like
Ferns are not only ferns. This group of plants also includes horsetail and pool-like species. Outwardly, they are significantly different from each other, but all have vegetative organs: shoot (leaves and stem) and root. What unites them is the fact that ferns, horsetails and crowns reproduce vegetatively, by spores and sexually.
If propagation by the vegetative method and spores is well known and understandable, then the sexual method of propagation of plants is not known to everyone. The development of ferns occurs in a cycle: asexual grows from the sexual generation, which in turn gives life to the sexual generation.
The asexual generation is a powerful plant with developed cirrus leaves, and the sexual one is small overgrown plants that exist only for a short time. Plaun and horsetail propagates in the same way as fern propagates: asexually and hollowly.
A sexless generation of ferns
Fern-like - these are the highest spore plants that grow mainly in moist shaded places. They have leaves, stems and roots. In the stems of ferns, horsetails and grouse there is a special conductive tissue resembling blood vessels.
Asexual generation - when a sporophyte is a leaf-stem plant, in which spores form in special organs located on the leaves (sporangia). In the plauna and horsetail, spores mature in the peculiar spikelets formed on the tops of the shoots, in the fern in the sacs located on the back of the leaf.
Sexual generation of ferns
Once in favorable conditions, spores grow and form a sprout - a small plant that represents the sexual generation, the so-called gametophyte. The growth has the appearance of a small green plate, reaching 1 cm in diameter. In the lower part of the overgrowth there are rhizoids, with the help of which a tiny plant is fixed in the soil. Female and male genital organs (archegonia and anteridia) are formed in the growth, in which eggs and spermatozoa develop. Since the growth is firmly pressed to the ground, drops of dew or rain linger under it. In this water, sperm "swim" to the eggs. When they merge, fertilization occurs, and a new plant subsequently develops from the formed zygote, which immediately gains growth, turning into a powerful fern.