Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Lemmaphyllum microphyllum

Last fall I bought two small pots of Lemmaphyllum microphyllum—an epiphytic fern—at the Pat Calvert Greenhouse up in Seattle.

On that same trip I visited the Amazon Spheres (here and here) and saw this little plant (possibly a Utricularia alpina) growing in a bromeliad. The thought seed was planted...


Once I was back home I wrapped one of my lemmaphyllum's roots, and a bit of soil, in some sphagnum moss and tucked the bundle into a bromeliad.

I loved the look and the plant seemed happy.

That is until the bromeliad started to brown up. It bloomed a couple of years ago and was finally starting its downward spiral.

So I pulled the plant and moss out of the bromeliad and mounted it on a piece of bark.

The green wire almost disappears, that is until you look at the bottom.

I keep tapping on the fronds with spores, hoping they'll let loose with a few, which will fall into the moss and maybe make babies. So far no, they're staying put.

Here is the other of my two plants. It got the bark treatment right away and has settled in nicely.

I used plastic filament on this one, harder to work with but also harder to see.

They aren't visible in these pictures, but there are tiny new fronds starting to push out of the moss.

I'm taking that as a sign the plant is happy.

Back when I visited Dick's greenhouse (here) I spotted the same plant getting a similar treatment. It was good to know I wasn't crazy in thinking it would be happy living like this.

Weather Diary, April 8: Hi 60, Low 48/ Precip .18"

All material © 2009-2019 by Loree Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

9 comments:

  1. How cool! Glad they're thriving for you. I mounted my staghorn fern onto wood using green wire, and it disappeared into the moss. It was easier to work with than filament.

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  2. Emily lisborgApril 09, 2019

    This is such a great little fern! I think I bought all the plaques that Dick had, including the one you have a picture of. It is just too cute! Great idea to grow it in a bromeliad! It teminds me of the tropics where you see large anthurium leaves covered in moss and fern spores

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  3. A sweet little fern and a fabulous treatment. You grow girl!

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  4. What a great idea but that looks like a lot of delicate work to do while keeping the plant alive. I'm impressed!

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  5. Cute little plant. It looks happy and healthy.

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  6. How clever of you, Loree - these are so sweet looking - may they live long and prosper! :)

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  7. Wow, this is the tiniest fern I've ever seen!

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  8. You find the most interesting plants! It was cute tucked into the bromeliad but it's good you were able to work out a longer-term solution to supporting it.

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  9. So cool, they seem very happy in your good care. I love fern!

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