One-year old P. wallichii sporeling, about 5 cm across.

Some notes on conservation and the purpose of this site:
     Platyceriums (staghorn ferns) are a group of epiphytes whose strange beauty holds a fascination for many who run across them in botanical gardens.  In the past, the rarer and more desirable species were only available as "imported" plants, which is a polite way of saying plants that were hacked off of trees in the rain forest and sold for absurdly inflated prices to collectors in the wealthier countries of the world.  Evidence from the countries where staghorn ferns are native suggests that at least some species are in trouble (see Porembski, S. and N. Biedinger 2001. Epiphytic ferns for sale. Plant Biology 3:72-76).  Habitat loss from logging, agriculture and other pressures is undoubtedly the most severe threat to platyceriums in nature, but this doesn't mean that commercial collecting is harmless, especially for those species with limited distributions.
      Staghorn ferns are increasingly being propagated in greenhouses, a development which may eventually eliminate the pressure on wild populations from collectors.  All species of Platycerium are in cultivation at this point, and since the merest pinch of spores from a cultivated plant can yield thousands of offspring, the continued commercial collection of wild plants cannot be viewed as anything but a nasty anachronism.  This page offers advice on raising platyceriums from spore, based upon my experiences dating back to the early 1990's.  My current methods are, I hope you will find, simple, inexpensive and effective.
 
 

•  Obtaining Spores
•  Sowing the Spores
•  Germination
•  Potential Problems
•  Sporeling Photos
•  Links