I have a strappy leaved mystery fern that I am hoping someone can ID for me.
It came as a very small plant mounted onto this cork plaque with the orchid that's on here and now is larger, much larger.
It has small punctate white dots on the leaves in a very symmetrical pattern.
Here is a close up of aleaf
Can you show the sori ("dots")?
Didn't I in the close up?
Sorry Gothqueen, I though the dots you were describling were sori. I've never seen that on a fern frond.
The sori are located on the underside of a fern's fronds; they are symetrically arranged cases which hold the fern's spores.
I'll have to look for those. I am not really a fern person, I bet you can tell that, huh? Maybe these white dots are some sort of variegation, like the dots on the spotted cast iron plant. They are on every leaf and look quite like they are supposed to be there
The sori might not be found on every frond. They will occur as the plant matures.
The arrangement of the sori is key to identifying ferns!
Can you get close-up photos of (a) the underside of a leaf, and (b) a new young leaf only partly expanded.
Resin
Looks like a birds nest fern
Wow, never seen that one. Looks kinda like the 'Crockodile Fern' http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/69775/ but yours doesn't have that tight bird's nest pattern? Maybe similar though.
Hummm interesting. I have a strappy leaf fern that I have just discovered. I need to post some photos of it too. mines much smaller than yours and seems to be spreading. Maybe this week I will post some photos...
I tried to get photos of the sori but they were non-existant
I think Dan is right with Microsorium musifolium.
I have a very large crocodile fern and the leaves on this one look different by comparison. They are not wavy on the edges
I'm sure there are different varieties of the species, as it is a very popular cultivated fern.
