I thought some iSpotters might find this article interesting -
Is it a restio? Is it a sedge? No! It is Schizaea pectinata a fern
http://pza.sanbi.org/schizaea-pectinata
My post today was observed at Cape Point in 2006
We were fortunate to spot Schizaea tenella in a really wet spot after another fire.
Remarkable the evolutionary adaptations that happen. Might be interesting to show the wide range of shapes and sizes of ferns from around the world.
Thinking of an ifocus project to do this, would not be possible to just show ferns in general as this would be too many so might select a range of perhaps 50 individual observations that show globally the diversity. This species here would certainly be one of them.
The Salviniales have a variety of taxa that aren’t stereotypical ferns - water moss (Salvinia), fairy moss (Azolla), water clover (Marsilea) and pillworts (Pilularia). Elsewhere you have Equisetum, Psilotum, Tmesipteris, and to a lesser degree Lygodium, Ophioglossum, Botrychium, Cyathea, Dicksonia and Osmunda.
I am trying out the idea of making an ifocus on ferns here test project234 | Project | UK and Ireland | iSpot Nature any ispot observations you can suggest from anywhere in the world would be useful. I probably need to arrange the observations systematically in some way and have a maximum of say 30-50 in total.
The idea is to get an overview of the biodiversity but perhaps also to look at some similar pairs or groups of species e.g. a couple of the bracken species
Oh dear Mike - there are so many projects on my back burner.
I tried to do ferns, and have quite a few pics - but, mostly, they do need some really good observations to get a firm ID.
There should be many on iSpot - some amazing ferns on the Table Mountain range.
Then your ifocus project:
“This species here would certainly be one of them.” Makes me wonder WHY they evolved this way.
The were some ferns from the Chilean community.
Nicky vB always does things well and has posted lots of ZA ferns.
Liked this one
The croziers give it away as a fern, but it’s an interesting genus with several species recorded here.
Hopeless
i tried a Global project with Pteridophyta - forget it
OK for Africa 1494 observations
OK for Eu and west Asia 1936 observations
Useless for the Americas just one
Australasia etc get very difficult to map and, in any case, Pteridophyta seems unaccptable to the World Dictionaries. I still wonder what GLOBAL means in iSpot.
To be honest, I am NOT certain I wish to see iFocus Globalised. There will be many thousands - what is the POINT of the word Focus then?
A Project collecting the iSpot World’s ferns is not the same thing - I would welcome that but it would have to be a Global project, not seen by many!
