Osmunda

Osmunda is a genus of primarily temperate-zone ferns of family Osmundaceae. Five to ten species have been listed for this genus.

The species have completely dimorphic fronds or pinnae (hemidimorphic), green photosynthetic sterile fronds, and non-photosynthetic spore-bearing fertile pinnae, with large, naked sporangia. Because of the large mass of sporangia that ripen uniformly at the same time to a showy golden color, the ferns look as if they are in flower, and so this genus is sometimes called the "flowering ferns".

The genus is known in the fossil record back to the Triassic period from fragmentary foliage nearly identical to the living Osmunda claytoniana.

Paleontological evidence indicates that Osmunda claytoniana, a reputed “living fossil,” has maintained evolutionary stasis for at least 180 million years.[1]

Species

Section Osmunda (Euosmunda)

Section Plenasium

Section Claytosmunda

Hybrids

Osmundastrum

The following species actually belong in the separate genus Osmundastrum, even though they have long been regarded as part of Osmunda:

Characteristics

O. japonica, O. × intermedia, and O. lancea

Osmunda species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the engrailed.

One of the species, the cinnamon fern (Osmundastrum cinnamomeum) forms huge clonal colonies in swamp areas. These ferns form massive rootstocks with densely matted, wiry roots. This root mass is an excellent substrate for many epiphytal plants. They are often harvested as osmundine and used horticulturally, especially in propagating and growing orchids.

The derivation of the genus name is uncertain. A leading theory is that it is from an English folk tale of a boatman named Osmund hiding his wife and children in a patch of royal fern during the Danish invasion. Other theories propose that it is from Middle English and Middle French words for a type of fern.

Notes

  1. ↑ Bomfleur B, McLoughlin S, Vajda V (March 2014). "Fossilized nuclei and chromosomes reveal 180 million years of genomic stasis in royal ferns". Science. 343 (6177): 1376–7. doi:10.1126/science.1249884. PMID 24653037.
  2. ↑ Miller, C.N. jr. (1982). "Osmunda wehrii, a New Species Based on Petrified Rhizomes from the Miocene of Washington". American Journal of Botany. 69 (1): 116–121. doi:10.2307/2442836.
  3. ↑ Thomas N. Taylor, Edith L. Taylor, Michael Krings: Paleobotany. The Biology and Evolution of Fossil Plants . Second Edition, Academic Press 2009, ISBN 978-0-12-373972-8 , p. 437-443
Wikisource has the text of the 1879 American Cyclopædia article Osmunda.
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