Ferns

Ferns are primitive plants that appeared 400 million years ago. As mosses, lichens, algas and fungus, they didn’t "invent" the flower to reproduce. Their reproduction organs, called sporangias, are generally gathered on the underside of the leaves. When they are mature, sporangias free microscopic seeds : the spores. They will give birth to the gametophytes that are tiny and fragile plants carrying the male and female sexual cells whose fusion is possible only when there is water. The ferns reproduction , still dependant upon the presence of water, is archaic compared to the flowering plants, which don’t need water for that. This water dependence explains why the ferns are particularly widespread in wet environments.

The ferns and related plants (Licopodium, Isoetes, Selaginella, Equisetum) are divided into 3 classes, 19 orders, 58 families, 316 genera and more than 11 000 species. The Lyon Botanical Garden’s collection counts about 400 species shared out amongst 80 genera and about 30 families from all the continents.

From arborescent ferns to the small ones, from terrestrial to aquatic and epiphytic, the collection is rich and diversified.

Without shimmering colours from flowers; the visitor’s eye is charmed by a symphony of greens and the fineness and elegance of their silhouette.

The ferns can be found in very different natural environments; that’s why the collection is shared out in several sectors of the Botanical Garden :

• In the fern patch and the school of botany : hardy species representing temperate regions (genera Asplenium, Dryopteris, Equisetum, Polypodium…)
• In the cold greenhouses : species from mediterranean and temperate regions, sensitive to frosts (genera Adiantum, Osmunda, Pteris…)
• In the hot greenhouses : tropical and subtropical species (genera Anemia, Davallia, Platycerium, Selaginella, Tectaria…)