Fern. Popular rumor ascribes magical powers 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, then you will understand the language of animals and birds, gain the ability to 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. Unless our genetic scientists can cross a rose or other flower with a fern and bring out a new variety of a plant already endowed with the ability to bloom. Then the prophecy will come true exactly - a person will really understand the language of plants, and he will find the treasure of the greatest value. In fact, there was no need to look for him. The treasure is buried in ourselves - this is the knowledge and desire of mankind to know the laws of nature and being.
Fern is the oldest plant on the planet
Ferns on Earth existed 40 million years ago. Of course, initially they were very different from those that have evolved.specimens that now grow on our blue planet. Ancient ferns were gigantic and looked more like trees than plants. But even now the species that we call ferns are so diverse that they are related only by the shape of the leaf and the method of reproduction. In our time, botanists have over 10 thousand species of this exotic plant.
The habitat of ferns is huge. Most species prefer forests and wetlands. Some species of plants are found high in the mountains, where their roots cling to rock crevices. There are ferns that can survive in arid deserts.
There are also those that grow right on the trees. Over such a long period of existence, the plant has adapted to life in the most extreme conditions.
How plants reproduce in nature
To find out how a fern reproduces, you need to examine its leaf under a microscope.
If you look closely, you can see dark tubercles arranged in rows at the bottom of the leaf. They contain small sacs in which spores ripen. With the help of spores, this plant, preserved from ancient times, reproduces. Now you know how the fern reproduces. It is impossible to see this plant releasing a peduncle in nature - this exists only in folk tales.
Bracket Fern
The name "bracken" for this species of fernsIt 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 healing substances for he alth - it contains catechins, flavonoids, phytosterols, carotene, riboflavin and nicotinic acid. Therefore, it is widely used in cooking and pharmaceuticals.
Do you want to know how bracken fern reproduces to grow it at home? The easiest way to do this is vegetatively - by digging up or purchasing a plant along with thin cord-like rhizomes. Early spring is most favorable for transplantation, but a fern transplanted at the end of summer can also take root well.
Also, bracken fern reproduces by spores. Their maturation occurs at the end of July beginning of September. During this period of time, you can try to cut off the spores from an adult plant and dispel them in a humid place in your area.
Bracken fern is unpretentious in care - it does not require top dressing, it easily tolerates frost and lack of moisture.
Knowing how bracken fern reproduces, it can be easily grown in your garden plot. The plant is very decorative, unpretentious and has the ability to grow rapidly, which won the hearts of flower growers.
How the ferns of the Vyatka forests breed
Vyatka forests. The nature here is so pristine and poorly understood that, according to local residents, there is a "snowman" here. Particularly attractive unaffected by agriculturalagriculture on the left bank of the Vyatka River, where the entire territory is occupied by floodplain meadows and forests. The grass cover of this piece 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 types of ferns as the shield, the kochedyzhnik and the common bracken.
On plots of land with constantly wet soil, there are whole fern spruce forests. It is amazing how the ferns of the Vyatka forests reproduce: openwork fern leaves are attached to the spruce forest and grow without touching the ground. This spectacle is especially beautiful in autumn, when the leaves of the fern turn yellow and, against the background of green fir trees, form fancy laces woven by nature.
Methods of propagation of ferns
Ferns are not the only ferns. This group of plants also includes horsetail and lycopsid species. Outwardly, they differ significantly from each other, but all have vegetative organs: shoot (leaves and stem) and root. They are also united by the fact that ferns, horsetails and club mosses reproduce vegetatively, by spores and sexually.
If reproduction by vegetative means and spores is well known and understandable, then the sexual method of reproduction of plants is not known to everyone. The development of ferns occurs in a cycle: an asexual generation grows from the sexual generation, which in turn gives life to the sexual generation.
The asexual generation is a powerful plant with developedpinnate leaves, and sexual - small growths that exist only for a short time. The clubmoss and horsetail reproduce in the same way as the fern reproduces: asexually and hollowly.
Asexual generation of ferns
Ferns are higher spore plants that grow mainly in damp, shaded places. They have leaves, stems and roots. In the stems of ferns, horsetails and club mosses there is a special conductive tissue resembling blood vessels.
Asexual generation - when the sporophyte is a leafy plant, in which spores are formed in special organs located on the leaves (sporangia). In club moss and horsetail, spores ripen in peculiar spikelets formed on the tops of shoots, in ferns - in sacs located on the back of the leaf.
Sexual generation of ferns
Once in favorable conditions, the spores grow and form a growth - a small plant, which is a sexual generation, the so-called gametophyte. The growth looks like a small green plate, reaching 1 cm in diameter. In the lower part of the growth there are rhizoids, with the help of which a tiny plant is attached to the soil. In the growth, female and male reproductive organs (archegonia and antheridia) are formed, in which eggs and spermatozoa develop. Since the growth is tightly pressed to the ground, drops of dew or rain linger under it. Through this water, the spermatozoa "swim" to the eggs. When they merge, fertilization occurs, and a new plant subsequently develops from the resulting zygote,which immediately gains growth, turning into a powerful fern.
