Platycerium superbum

Platycerium superbum, commonly known as the staghorn fern, is a Platycerium species of fern. It is native to Australia.

Platycerium superbum
Staghorn fern at North Coast Regional Botanic Garden, Australia
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Class: Polypodiopsida
Order: Polypodiales
Suborder: Polypodiineae
Family: Polypodiaceae
Genus: Platycerium
Species:
P. superbum
Binomial name
Platycerium superbum
de Jonch. & Hennipman

Distribution

The fern is native to north-east New South Wales (north of Nabiac) and Queensland.[1] It can also be found in parts of Indonesia, Malaysia[2] and New Guinea.[3] In propagated form, the plant is grown successfully as far south as Victoria.[4]

During the 1990s, the fern was also discovered on the Hawaiian Islands where they are now considered a "problem species".[5]

Features

Platycerium superbum is a bracket epiphyte naturally occurring in and near rainforests but is now also widely cultivated as an ornamental plant for gardens.

In both naturally occurring and propagated forms, these ferns develop a humus-collecting "nest" of non-fertile fronds and in doing so can grow up to 1 metre wide. The ferns also develop hanging fertile fronds that can reach up to 2 metres long.[2]

Both fertile and non-fertile fronds are broad and branching and grown to resemble the horns of a stag or elk, thus the common names stag horn or elk horn.[2]

The plant gives off many tiny spores that drift to nearby trees to reproduce.[3]

Nutrition

In the wild, the nest structure captures falling leaves and other detritus which then decomposes to provide the plant with nutrients.[4] The ferns are known to favour a slightly acidic environment and so to encourage growth in propagated plants, some growers recommend adding used tea leaves directly to the plant's "nest".[2] Others recommend doing the same with banana peel.[6]

References
  1. Platycerium superbum de Jonch. & Hennipman by Peter G. Wilson (National Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney)
  2. Platycerium superbum (Australian Native Plants Society)
  3. Burnie, David; Elphick, Jonathan; Greenaway, Theresa; Taylor, Barbara; Walisiewicz, Marek; Walker, Richard (1998). The DK Nature Encyclopedia. - 1st American Edition. New York, New York, United Stated of America: DK Publishing Inc. p. 137. ISBN 0-7894-3411-3.
  4. Platycerium superbum by Pippa Lloyd (Australian National Botanic Gardens, 2006)
  5. Fern Ecology by Klaus Mehltreter, Lawrence R. Walker & Joanne M. Sharpe (Cambridge University Press, 2010)
  6. Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening (3rd Edition): Month by Month by Pat Welsh (Chronicle Books, 2009)
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