Systematics   

Description

Distribution & Habitat   

Culture

Propagation

Uses   

References

  

Scientific Name:  

 

Psilotum nudum 

   

   

   

Common Name:

 

Whisk Fern

• Phylum: Psilotophyta
• Class: Psilotopsida
• Family: silotaceae
• Genus: Psilotum
• Species: nudum

Reference for taxonomic Information

http://florawww.eeb.uconn.edu/acc_num/198500935.html

Description

Whisk fern, Psilotum nudum (Family Psilotaceae), is a widespread, rootless, green-stemmed epiphyte. Technically, the whisk fern plant is said to have no leaves, but instead possesses minute enations along the angular stem axis and in association with the 3-lobed spore-producing structure, the synangium. The aboveground portion of the plant is regularly branched, with scalelike outgrowths that resemble small leaves. A subterranean rhizome (rootlike stem) anchors the plant in place and absorbs nutrients by means of filaments called rhizoids. This is one of only a few surviving members of an ancient group of vascular plants, accepted by some botanists as the most primitive--certainly the most primitive-looking and simplest vascular plant alive today. The name whisk fern is somewhat of a misnomer, because this is not classified as a fern.

Reference for Descriptions

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/plants/pterophyta/psilotales.html

Distribution and Habitat

Whisk ferns like the warm weather of the tropics and subtropics. They are native to the southeastern region of the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. In the United States, whisk ferns can be found in swamplands and dry rocky cliffs from North Carolina to Oklahoma. Whisk Ferns form large clumps in crooks and nannies of trees and are occasionally terrestrial in moist hammocks and well-mulched flower beds

Reference for Distribution and Habitat

http://sheepshead.louisiana.edu/FIPSE/botany/ch10/psilotophyta

 Cultural Information

Soil· requires a humus rich potting mixture (2 parts peat moss or leaf mold to 2 parts coarse sand to 1 part loam).

Water requirement· The plants should be kept moist, but can withstand a fair amount of drought.

Humidity· humid atmosphere.

Temperature· 55- to 60-degree temperatures

Other · The plant responds well to a balanced fertilizer diluted to ½ the strength recommended on the label once a month.

Reference for Cultural Information  

http://sheepshead.louisiana.edu/FIPSE/botany/ch10/psilotophyta
  

Phylum Description

Science: Biology: Botany: Plants: Ferns  

Texas A&M University. Psilotaceae

  

Propagation Methods   

  

Psilotum nudum is propagated by division or by spores. Division can be done at anytime of the year. Spores can take up to 1 year to germinate and must be kept in the dark. 

References for Propagation Methods

http://www.fwkc.com/encyclopedia/low/articles/w/w028000661f.html

Uses/ Fun Facts

Ø Whisk fern spores are borne in infrequently seen yellow lobes which form the base of the scales. Hawaiians often collect the spores and use them as talcum powder (Foster and Gifford, 1974).

Ø Whisk ferns are often described as "Living Fossils?" because they are very similar in many aspects to the earliest tracheophytes of the Silurian-Devonian Periods, e.g., Cooksonia, Agalophyton. Largely through the work of David Bierhorst and Patricia Gensel, this relationship has been discounted however.

References for Uses and Fun Facts:

http://www.ibiblio.org/unc-biology/herbarium/weakley/Psilotum.html

 General References

Foster, A.S. and Gifford, E.M. Jr. 1974. Comparative Morphology of Vascular Plants. The Psilopsida. San Francisco, CA: W.H. Freeman and Company.

SIUC / College of Science / Land Plants Online / Psilophyta URL:http://www.science.siu.edu/landplants/psilophyta/psilophyta.html. Last updated: 20-Jan- 00 / dln

  

  

Image References:   

http://www.wisc.edu/botit/tour/Roomtwo-Ps.html

http://www.cassiakeyensis.com/sofl_plants/fern_psilotum_nudum.html

http://www.science.siu.edu/landplants/Psilophyta/psilophyta.html

  

This page was developed by: Joshua W. Courtney,  

W&J Class of 2001  

   

Last revised on 8 May 2001