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Ferns are an ancient type of vascular plant that predate flowering plants and dinosaurs. They reproduce using spores rather than seeds, which are produced in structures called sori. The spores grow into small heart-shaped gametophytes that can later develop into sporophytes - the adult fern plant. This lifecycle allows ferns to thrive in difficult environments with little energy expenditure. Ferns were one of the dominant plant groups when dinosaurs roamed Earth millions of years ago, and remain successful plants today.
Ferns are an ancient type of vascular plant that predate flowering plants and dinosaurs. They reproduce using spores rather than seeds, which are produced in structures called sori. The spores grow into small heart-shaped gametophytes that can later develop into sporophytes - the adult fern plant. This lifecycle allows ferns to thrive in difficult environments with little energy expenditure. Ferns were one of the dominant plant groups when dinosaurs roamed Earth millions of years ago, and remain successful plants today.
Ferns are an ancient type of vascular plant that predate flowering plants and dinosaurs. They reproduce using spores rather than seeds, which are produced in structures called sori. The spores grow into small heart-shaped gametophytes that can later develop into sporophytes - the adult fern plant. This lifecycle allows ferns to thrive in difficult environments with little energy expenditure. Ferns were one of the dominant plant groups when dinosaurs roamed Earth millions of years ago, and remain successful plants today.
Close your eyes and picture dinosaurs roaming ancient Earth. What plants do you see growing beneath their feet? Chances are good ferns are one of the first plants that come to mind when you picture "the forest primeval," and you'd be right. Ferns covered many parts of the Earth during the times of the dinosaurs, and continue to thrive today. Ferns are a very ancient family of plants: early fern fossils predate the beginning of the Mesozoic era, 360 million years ago. They are older than land animals and far older than the dinosaurs. They were thriving on Earth for two hundred million years before the flowering plants evolved. Ferns are type of vascular plant, containing vascular tissues, but somehow unusual. One of the things that sets ferns apart from many other vascular plants is the fact that they don't flower, and they don't produce seeds. These type of plants are called pteridophytes. Ferns reproduce using spores. These spores are transported by wind or sometimes are stuck to the coats of animals moving by. The spores have very little nutritive value for predators, and don't take much energy for the plant to produce, giving these plants an adaptive edge in difficult growing environments. A fern has a leafy branch called a frond, which consists of Matteuccia struthiopteris smaller leaflets known as pinnae. There are tiny spots under a Ostrich Fern frond where spores grow inside casings referred to as sporangia. These sporangia form a sorus, which sometimes exist on the veins of a fern leaf. They are also sometimes found under the pinnae. Not all fronds contain spores. If the spore finds suitable conditions, it will grow into a tiny heart-shaped plantlet called a prothallus or gametophyte. In this regard, the spore behaves quite like the seed of a higher plant, except that what grows from the seed is the full adult plant, but what grows from the spore is the gametophyte. The gametophyte is not the full fern, but a plant with only half the genetic material of the adult fern, rather like a sperm cell or an egg cell. The gametophyte is the intermediate stage from spore to adult fern. If the gametophyte finds itself in a suitably moist place, fertilisation takes place, and it is transformed into a complete adult plant. It becomes whats called a sporophyte. Given the right conditions, this tiny sporophyte will continue to grow into a full adult fern, where it can produce spores of its own, to repeat the life cycle. Sporophyte can be easily recognized because it looks like typical fern. Ferns are very succesful plants. Next time you find a fern, remember that these plants are older than the first land animal, much older than dinosaurs. Give time to appreciate these wonderful and timeless, product of nature.
Bibliography
MOSI Outside: Five Fun Fern Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2016, from http://lepcurious.blogspot.com/2016/02/five-fun-fern-facts.html
Fern. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fern
About ferns. (n.d.). Retrieved August 27, 2016, from