Malagasy Plants?

[Frogtofall]

Originally Posted by Pete Phillipson

I am pleased to here that diverse interests in Malagasy plants have lead at least one of you to consult the Madagascar Catalogue (Tropicos) - as one of the people behind the project its good to have feedback and suggestions

I was quite impressed with the website. Great work.

[skylsdale]

There's Microgramma lycopodioides...it was all over the trees in West Africa when I was there. It has a pretty wide distribution, including Madagascar, and would be a good cover on your treefern panels.

[harrywitmore]

Nice picture. That particular Microgramma is not all that common in culture from what I can tell. There are a number that go by that name but don't seem to match the description. What is the other species on the tree?

[zBrinks]

I would love to find that Microgramma sp., or any one with a similar growth habit. If anyone has any leads, let me know :P

[skylsdale]

Hi Harry...from what I could tell, that was actually the same species/plant--the narrower leaves seemed to be the ones that carried the spores, while the more oblong leaves were the standard growth form. Below are a couple more pictures that might give you a better look (notice at the top of this first image there is a fern leaf with three lobes...I'm pretty sure that was from the same species as well--I wonder if different light exposure caused different growth types?). I tried seeing if they were all connected via the same stems, but couldn't verify whether they were or not (these tangles seemed to be a favorite haunt for some ants that packed a pretty nasty bite):

[harrywitmore]

How big would you say the small leaves were? According to The Fern Growers Manual it should be about 2". But there could be a great bit of variability in a species this widespread. For a source for small ferns sign up for Charles Alford's list at www.rareferns.com. He sells a number of Microgramma from time to tome.

[skylsdale]

The small leaves were around 1-1.25" or so. Here's one last shot of the fern on another tree (although I didn't inspect too closely, it seemed as though even those larger leaves were part of the same plant):

[harrywitmore]

From what I see described it may well be lycopodioides but those larger fronds in the last picture look too large. I haven't found the other species that are native to the same area. By the way, this plant looks nothing like what I have that I thought might be lycopodioides but from this bit of research I suspect it is not.

[candm519]

When I searched for images of Microgramma lycopodioides on bing.com, I found this photo from Black Jungle Photo Gallery, Terrarium Photos.

Begonia 'BeBe' and Microgramma lycopodioides

Might they still have some hanging around?

(Bing is my latest favorite alternative to google; it seems to stay more focused on my search terms.)

[harrywitmore]

That one fits the description of M squamulosa better than lycopodioides. The rhizome scales are supposed to be brown on lycopodioides and these look to be whitish. Nice one regardless.