I bought a cactus in the summer, there is also a fern growing (like a hitchhiker), I haven't identified the fern yet, but it is covered in new spores and I'd like to know how to capture them properly and how to grow them can anyone share some advise?

I've never tried it myself, but it sounds like an interesting project. A google search brought up this:
http://www.hardyferns.org/fern...

That's well beyond my experience or facilities to grow from spores. I think you practically need sterile, laboratory conditions to grow from spore.

Perhaps someone will have experience in growing from spores and can help you there.

According to the bit of reading I've done, you do need sterile soil (probably to help prevent mold) and consistently moist conditions, but hey, they grow outdoors. It can't be THAT difficult!

One spore in 10,000 will germinate and grow a viable plant outdoors. Not a good percentage to say the least.

Sheesh. So where's your spirit of adventure?

IF I did not have 100 blooming size orchids plus 200 mid-size orchids plus 300 tiny seedlings to deal with..................well, I'm sure you get the picture.

I almost did try to germinate staghorn fern spores last summer. I collected thousands of spores from my plants and had them in an envelope. That's as far as I got! I still have those spores........somewhere?

I'd imagine they keep pretty well. I can certainly understand why you don't really have time to mess with this sort of experiment. But the little bit of reading I've done makes it *appear* at least that it's not beyond the capability of the average person who's willing to take the time and trouble. And I'm sure that different types of ferns are more difficult than others.

I think I read growing ferns from spores was actually pretty easy. I find them growing in my lawn all the time, dozens of them. I keep digging them up, it appears there are two kinds.I just pot them up.

I'm sure that depends a lot on your local climate, but feel free to rip up a few and send them my way!

I guess climate does make a big difference, ferns really seems to do well here. I have several types growing in the beds in the back, they tend to die back during the winter but return in the spring. The sword ferns multiply rapidly but most of the ferns I grow have been pretty well behaved.

i have polypodium aureum (phlebodium aureum) that seeded in the orchid pot (bark with long-fiber sphag moss) - i left it growing for a couple of years together. just reg care for orchid and occasional mist. then i repotted and pulled it out ... long story - it became a huge plant and started dropping spores everywhere. it's indoors. i i have min 65% humidity even in winter with heat going, but in summer it might go up to 85% (just like outdoors). i had an african mask that i tented for winter to keep it warmer and prevent the drying of the soil. i also had LF sphag as 'mulch' on top - so the spores sprouted in multidude... and in 3 years time the ferns just choked my 'poly'! i had to repot to save it. which i did. the ferns are fine too.
now i bought a bromeliad last december that had i little maidenhair fern sprouting in it (tiny thing) - well, it's still small, but going.
so take a deli container with a lid (clam-shell), lay some moistened LF sphag in it and sprinkle some spores. provided it's in a warn place for a tropical fern and bright indirect light (spring-summer would be best), you should have it going quite easy.
i posted a pic in the database - the whole multi-gen family (that was 1.5 years ago).

Seedfork said:I think I read growing ferns from spores was actually pretty easy. I find them growing in my lawn all the time, dozens of them. I keep digging them up, it appears there are two kinds.I just pot them up.

Last year, I began seeing ones that look just like these appear all over the lawn, even in full sun... hopefully they come back this spring, but I have a few potted up in the garage in case the ones outside don't make it

@joejones820. I only grow staghorn ferns and they are difficult to start from spores. I think some ferns are easy though.

I hope it's not too hard for an amateur to keep everything sterile when propagating!

What little I know of ferns from spore is a fascinating two step process. a little plant that doesn't look much like a fern comes from the spore. After some period of development the male portion (roughly equivalent to pollen) works its way up the plantlet with half of the needed genetics to what would be roughly the stamen where the other half of the genes are. The conditions most be VERY moist for this movement. In this respect many consider ferns to reproduce asexually, but that's kind of fuzzy since there is that half and half from two different cells.
Although ferns are extremely old and considered a less complex life form, their reproductive cycle is more complex than flowering plants.
Here is a web site that does an excellent job of explaining this process without becoming technical; even I can understand it! :whistling:

http://www.home.aone.net.au/~b...

I too have heard ferns need sterile environments, but mine keep popping up new ones all over my fern garden - often in the middle of other ferns that I have to lift to get the rouges out! My ferns are all in a mostly shady area about 12' square; like all my gardens it is a raised bed, heavily mulched with black bark mulch (the black is just for esthetics), and the area stays moist but well drained. I don't encourage them to grow from spore by laying fronds on the ground or collecting and sowing them (I certainly don't discourage them either!). I do get some new ferns that are almost like strawberries from short runners (skinny rhizsomes) - primarily Japanese Painted Ferns - but it amazes me ho many are little sprouts.