Ferns, due to their refreshing greenness and delicate gracefulness of the leaves, possess immensely great antique value and exquisite beauty quiet distinct from those of other plants.
Ornamental Ferns
Plant size varies from tiny moss-like growths to massive tree ferns stretching sometimes 25 meters or even more.
Leaves are extremely variable in size and structure. Ferns are popular as decorative plants.
The entire fern plant is known as the saprophyte which constitutes leaves, rhizomes or stems and roots
As a reproductive unit, the sporophyte yield spores.
Many ferns are terrestrial, several are epiphytic and some are aquatic
The typical fern of the temperate region has an underground stem, a rhizome, which in some ferns is in a stubby compact arrangement and in others stretches out horizontally to a considerable length.
Numerous small, dark and divided roots stretch downward from the rhizome.
Leaves are the only part which are external above the ground and are called fronds.
No other plant group has a greater variation of leaf architecture, shape and structure.
The extended part of the leaf is called the blade and between the blade and the rhizome is the petiole or stalk.
A leaf is said to be fertile when it bears spores and many species are entirely or sometimes partially fertile.
Sterile leaves are generally more attractive and long lasting
Ferns as potted plants
Fern leaves are normally large, simple or compound.
Most of the ferns have compound leaves while a few like Asplenium nidus have simple undivided leaves.
Compound leaves are divided into many leaflets or pinnae
The two distinctive features of ferns are firstly, when the fern leaf first emerges from the underground stem, it is coiled up at the tip into a crosier-like formation and gradually uncoils until it has strengthened out completely. This unusual manner of growth is termed circulate venation.The crosiers differ among genera. Secondly the smaller veins exhibit a forked branching in a fern leaf which is known as dichotomous venation.
Ferns are propagated by spores.
They grow well under the shelter of a house which is protected from severe sun and hot winds.
Most of them enjoy bright light. They require plenty of fresh air and moderately high humidity
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