Are ferns | pine leaf ferns endangered? How to cultivate and maintain?
Text: Mr. Hanaki
Ferns are the most widely distributed higher plants in the world, widely distributed around the world, especially in the tropics and subtropics. Ferns began to appear in the Late Silurian Period (420 million years ago) and flourished in the Paleozoic Devonian Period (400-360 million years ago) and the Carboniferous Period (about 355 million to 295 million years ago).
After a long period of geological changes, there are about 12,000 species of ferns in existence today, and China has 61 families and 223 genera, about 2,600 species, mainly distributed in South China and Southwest China, yunnan province alone has more than 1,000 species, so it is called "fern kingdom" in China.
In the previous article, we have successively introduced many national rare and endangered ferns, such as quercus, jade dragon fern, light leaf fern, water fern and other national level I protection rare and endangered ferns, as well as the opening fern, star fern, cycad fern, seven finger fern, fan fern, Guanzhong, Chinese fern, deer horn fern and other national level II protected rare ferns, and made a brief introduction to their distribution and protection status.
Not long ago, there was a flower friend consultation, pine leaf fern genus is not an endangered species? What is the value? And how to cultivate and maintain and other issues, for this reason, the author looked up some information, found that some of the encyclopedia introduction and news reports are still not very accurate, feel the need to give you science popularization.
Pine leaf fern (psilotum nudum (l.) beauv.), also known as pine leaf orchid, iron stone pine, iron brush handle, stone parasitism, stone dragon whiskers, etc., belongs to the pine leaf fern family (psilotaceae), pine leaf fern (psilotum) small ferns, epiphytic trunks or rock crevices. The rhizome is transverse, cylindrical, brown, with only false roots, bifurcated branches. Height 15-51 cm. The aboveground stem is erect, glabrous or scaly, green, unbranched at the lower part, multi-bifurcated in the upper part; the branches are triangular, green, densely packed with white stomata. The leaves are small, scattered, type II; sterile leaves are scaly triangular, veinless, pointed, grassy; and the spore leaves are bifurcated. Sporangia are solitary in the axils of the sporangia leaf, spherical, 2 lobes longitudinally lobed, often 3 fused into triangular polycysts, yellowish brown. The spores are kidney-shaped, the polar surface is round, and the equatorial surface is kidney-shaped.
There are 2 species in the genus Pine leaf fern, which are widely distributed in the tropics and subtropics. A kind of distribution in China, that is, pine leaf fern, is produced in the vast area south of Qinling Mountains in China, and is distributed in Jiangsu, Anhui, Fujian, Taiwan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places.
According to encyclopedic data and media reports, pine leaf ferns are found in many places and listed as rare and endangered plants, which is a bit imprecise. Because, our current classification of rare and endangered plants is generally based on the "List of Wild Plants under National Key Protection (First Batch)" promulgated by the State Council on August 4, 1999, and later the "List of Wild Plants under National Key Protection (Second Batch)" (Discussion Draft), the second batch has been a discussion draft for more than 20 years and has not been officially announced, but regarding the protection level of plants, most of these two lists shall prevail, and the assessment levels are divided into national level I and level II (level III is provincial or county level protection).
However, when we looked up these two lists, we found that pine leaf ferns were not entered, which shows that for now, the wild number of pine leaf ferns should be relatively large and widely distributed, so it has not been listed as a national protection for the time being.
However, in the Red List of Biodiversity of China – Volumes of Higher Plants, published by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Chinese Academy of Sciences in September 2013, pine leaf ferns are given the name of pine leaf fern and rated as vulnerable, and in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (iUCN), pine leaf ferns are assessed as vulnerable (vu).
In summary, for now, the pine leaf fern is not an endangered species, but a vulnerable species, however, it is also on the verge of endangerment and requires appropriate measures to protect. Some media reports say that the pine leaf fern is a "living fossil of plants" 300 to 400 million years ago, although this is not wrong, but the "gimmick" is a little more, because the pine leaf fern is just a relatively old primitive fern, and most ferns were born at that time, and it cannot be reported that every fern is said to be a living fossil. However, this is related to the current "eyeball economy", and it is common for the media to use gimmicks to attract clicks.
However, although the pine leaf fern is not an endangered species, the pine leaf fern has a high ornamental value. Pine leaf fern belongs to the small fern, often epiphytic on rock crevices or trunks, beautiful plants, verdant and green foliage, spore sporangia spherical, peculiar shape, very elegant, but also more shade-tolerant, suitable for making potted ornamental, that is, lonely planting, can also be accompanied by rockery stones, as an embellishment, quiet and feminine, so it is quite popular with flower lovers.
Regarding the cultivation and conservation of pine leaf fern, we share the following experience:
【Seed source】Pine leaf fern is widely distributed in the wild, and can be mined in the mountains, propagated in separate plants, or spore propagation, and can also be cultivated by purchasing adult plants.
【Growth habit】 Pine leaf fern likes warm, humid and semi-shady environment, growth temperature of 18 °C-28 °C, winter is generally not less than 5 °C, below 0 °C frost damage, the north should be maintained indoors, light is generally placed in a strong scattered light can be.
【Soil substrate】Pine leaf fern is mostly epiphytic herb, like loose and breathable drainage of convenient weak acidic soil, can be used peat soil mixed with humus soil for pot maintenance, can also be used moss, snake wood, bark and other fiber substrates to simulate wild environment epiphytic maintenance (south).
【Cultivation】 Pine leaf fern root system is not developed, no roots, only hairy false roots, false roots only have a fixed effect, can not absorb nutrients, false roots do not have absorption function. Relying on the symbiotic bacteria in the rhizome tissue cells to provide nutrients, so the cultivation must be loose and breathable, can be cultivated in porous shallow pots, charcoal is laid at the bottom of the pot, and then filled with bark fern roots, and then put into pine leaf fern, and then filled with peat soil bark mixed matrix into the fixed, generally about two years to turn the pot.
【Watering and fertilization】Pine leaf fern likes to be wet, does not like to be wet, so watering generally keeps the substrate moist, see dry to wet. Pine leaf fern cultivated with peat soil and fern root can also be fertilized without fertilization, and if fertilized, generally in the spring and autumn, fertilize with decomposed cake fertilizer water or calcium superphosphate solution every half a month, which can make the leaves more luxuriant.
The above is about the appreciation of pine leaf fern and the sharing of conservation experience, if there is any lack, please criticize and correct the flower friends, thank you!
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2020-4-11 Easy to flower wood