What fern was the inspiration for a legendary zoophyte that was once believed to grow sheep as its fruit?
200e9d33b4d1500942dc978814cedb8a
Cibotium barometz Cibotium barometz, the golden chicken fern or woolly fern, is a species of tree fern native to parts of China and to the western part of the Malay Peninsula. The fern's woolly rhizome was thought to be the inspiration for the mythical "Vegetable Lamb of Tartary".
0b1d8ed7045f37c91dec6d0d28b5cf5e
Vegetable Lamb of Tartary The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Latin: "Agnus scythicus" or "Planta Tartarica Barometz") is a legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once believed to grow sheep as its fruit. The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all accessible foliage was gone, both the plant and sheep died.
2946cf4faf6857f388d368a7171f0ef9
Astelia alpina Astelia alpina called pineapple grass, silver astelia, or perching lily is a commonly found species in alpine and subalpine areas of Tasmania and the Australian Alps. It is a perennial herb that typically dominates its environment by growing in dense clusters, called mats, in alpine bogs. There are two subspecies: "Astelia alpina" var. "novae hollandiae" from New South Wales and Victoria and "Astelia alpina" var. "alpina" endemic to Tasmania. Both subspecies appear very similar to each other. The species was originally described by Robert Brown.
f28fa4cdb660f96364135d648051b380
Dryopteris clintoniana Dryopteris clintoniana, commonly known as Clinton's wood fern, is a fern of hybrid origin native to the northern hemisphere. It is a fertile hexaploid, arising as a species by doubling of its chromosome number from a hybrid between "Dryopteris cristata", a tetraploid, and "Dryopteris goldiana", a diploid. It is more northern in its range than either parent species.
97416aac4eeaaf8e5b5d1db3264e5a50
Leptopteris superba Leptopteris superba, commonly called Prince of Wales feathers or common crape fern, is a fern in the genus "Leptopteris". It can be found in both New Zealand and Australia. It is characterized by having large fronds (around a meter in length) with large sporangia on their undersides. The shape of the fronds is elliptical (similar to that of Ostrich Fern). It grows from wet lowlands to montane forests.
7e004569b4ad40434dec7042eb2acb41
Marrana The Marrana or Marrane is a breed of large sheep from the area of Rezzoaglio, in the Val d'Aveto in the province of Genova, in Liguria in north-west Italy. It was formerly a small breed, with an average weight of about 50 kg; the handful of surviving members of the breed are larger, and show strong morphological similarity to the Bergamasca and the Biellese, to such an extent that the integrity of the breed has been questioned. The Marrana is one of the forty-two autochthonous local sheep breeds of limited distribution for which a herdbook is kept by the Associazione Nazionale della Pastorizia, the Italian national association of sheep-breeders.
efe85add4a29d931f16a578e97f97b33
Salvia microphylla Salvia microphylla (Baby sage, Graham's sage, Blackcurrant sage) is a perennial shrub found in the wild in southeastern Arizona and the mountains of eastern, western, and southern Mexico. It is a very complex species which easily hybridizes, resulting in numerous hybrids and cultivars brought into horticulture since the 1990s. The specific epithet "microphylla", from the Greek, means "small leaved". In Mexico, it is called "mirto de montes," or "myrtle of the mountains."
6a17880a25f2cdf5d8943c673b8fcefa
Accessory fruit An accessory fruit (sometimes called "false fruit", "spurious fruit", "pseudofruit", or "pseudocarp") is a fruit in which some of the flesh is derived not from the ovary but from some adjacent tissue exterior to the carpel. Examples of accessory tissue are the receptacle of the strawberry, pineapple, common fig, and mulberry, and the calyx of "Gaultheria procumbens" or "Syzygium jambos". Pomes, such as apples and pears, are also accessory fruits, with much of the fruit flesh derived from a hypanthium. Other example could be the "anthocarps" specific to the family Nyctaginaceae, where most of the fruit comes from the perianth (floral whorls).
f52cfd6ddffe74edfbaea0c416386cee
Pleuricospora Pleuricospora is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the heath family containing the single species Pleuricospora fimbriolata, which is known by the common name fringed pinesap. It is native to the forests of the west coast of North America from British Columbia to the San Francisco Bay Area. This perennial herb is a mycoheterotroph, parasitizing fungi for nutrients. It is yellowish, cream or white in color, lacking chlorophyll, with the tips of the bracts darkening with age. It produces a fleshy stemless peduncle above the leaf litter of the forest floor, reaching no more than 10 to 12 centimeters tall. Leaves are reduced to scales or absent, as the plant does not perform photosynthesis. The aboveground portion of the plant is essentially just inflorescence, with cylindrical whitish flowers blooming for a short time. The flower has four or five petals and about eight stamens in its throat. It produces a fleshy berry under a centimeter wide containing many tiny, sticky seeds. The seeds are dispersed when small mammals eat the fruits.
09721a0f314260935844f06e9d319c55
Diplazium pycnocarpon Diplazium pycnocarpon (narrow-leaved glade fern, narrow-leaved-spleenwort, glade fern) is a tall slender-leaved fern growing as individuals with 5 to 6 leaves. The plant spreads by creeping underground stems allowing a small colony to develop over time. The leaf blade is oblong-lanceolate and once-pinnate, unlike the closely related "Athyrium". Leaves grow to about 90 cm (36 in) long and 15 cm (6 in) wide. The pinnae are linear and entire. Fertile leaves are similar but erect, narrower than sterile leaves and with longer stipes. The sori are long and narrow in two lines along the underside of a leaf pinna, giving rise to its specific epithet "pycnocarpon" ('crowded fruits').
72335df6dc5ceb4ff99e0a6c7401e6c5
Ficus pleurocarpa Ficus pleurocarpa, commonly known as the banana fig, karpe fig or gabi fig, is a fig that is endemic to the wet tropical rainforests of northeastern Queensland, Australia. It has characteristic ribbed orange and red cylindrical syconia. It begins life as a hemiepiphyte, later becoming a tree up to 25 m tall. "F. pleurocarpa" is one of the few figs known to be pollinated by more than one species of fig wasp.
73d5d59281590ee367680110c1ff9f61
Asparagus setaceus Asparagus setaceus, commonly known as common asparagus fern, lace fern, climbing asparagus, or ferny asparagus, is a climbing plant in the genus "Asparagus". Despite its common name, the plant is not a true fern, but has leaves that resemble one.
5e1d274fe0ecd60cc1637b13b7563215
Diplazium esculentum Diplazium esculentum, the vegetable fern, is an edible fern found throughout Asia and Oceania. It is probably the most commonly consumed fern. It is known as "pucuk paku" in Malaysia, " pakô" in the Philippines, "dhekia (ঢেকীয়া)" in Assam "Dhenkir Shaak (ঢেঁকির শাক) in Bengali, and "linguda" in northern India, referring to the curled fronds. In Thailand it is known as "phak khut" (Thai: ผักกูด ). They may have mild amounts of fern toxins but no major toxic effects are recorded.
298402724eecab3acd1a05b9916bf57b
Adiantum peruvianum Adiantum peruvianum (also called silver-dollar fern, Peruvian maidenhair) is a fern in the genus "Adiantum". It has black stems and large flat pinnules. It is frequently grown as an ornamental greenhouse or house plant, and is favored for its unusually large pinnules.
5773c7b156bf7c269ff07ecc2c28640b
Gomphocarpus physocarpus Gomphocarpus physocarpus, commonly known as balloonplant, balloon cotton-bush, bishop's balls, nailhead, or swan plant, is a species of milkweed. The plant is native to southeast Africa, but it has been widely naturalized. It is often used as an ornamental plant. The name "balloonplant" is an allusion to the swelling bladder-like follicles which are full of seeds.
89a025c97307ee4f9b2db2091892f36e
Polypodium californicum Polypodium californicum is a species of fern known by the common name California polypody.
2a9986fad375d3b261e248aff3e0703a
Dryopteris filix-mas Dryopteris filix-mas, the male fern, is a common fern of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, native to much of Europe, Asia, and North America. It favours damp shaded areas in the understory of woodlands, but also shady places on hedge-banks, rocks, and screes. It is much less abundant in North America than in Europe. The plant is sometimes referred to in ancient literature as worm fern.
a82269c21b507e26ac8f722a02e2642f
King fern King fern is a common name for several ferns and may refer to:
002bbffee5faf239c8e8e904606d7995
Bradgatia Bradgatia linfordensis is a bush-like Ediacaran fossil. It consists of six or more fronds radiating from a central anchor point at the base. It resembles a squashed cabbage in appearance. When multiple fossils are found together they are regularly spaced out rather than randomly distributed. It dominates the ecosystem at 8 to 22 cm above the mud surface at the bottom the sea where it grew. It was over-towered by "Charnia "and "Charniodiscus "which grew nearby.
e60eab0dedb717160f607a7e7efaddc4
Arkan Sonney An arkan sonney (literally "lucky urchin" or "plentiful pig") is the Manx term for hedgehog. In Manx folklore it is a type of fairy creature which looks like a pig with long hairs. They are said to bring good luck to one who catches them. For this reason they're also called "lucky piggies". They flee human beings. They live in the wild, are faster than lighting on land and have feathered wings that can be up to one and a half times their body size.
0f54970ec50d397137c02ed94beb19ca
Pteridophyte A pteridophyte "sensu lato" is a vascular plant (with xylem and phloem) that reproduces via spores, and therefore was a member of the former and now invalid taxon Pteridophyta. The term is now used only informally to denominate a fern (monilophyte) or lycophyte. Because pteridophytes produce neither flowers nor seeds, they are also referred to as "cryptogams". The pteridophytes include the ferns, horsetails, and the lycophytes (clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts). These are not a monophyletic group because ferns and horsetails are more closely related to seed plants than to the lycophytes. Therefore, "Pteridophyta" is now an invalid taxon, although the term "pteridophyte" remains in common parlance, as do "pteridology" and "pteridologist" as a science and its practitioner, to indicate lycophytes and ferns as an informal grouping, such as the International Association of Pteridologists and the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group.
748c12b53e22e265b2d6468c15dfe3c4
Asplenium azoricum Asplenium azoricum is a fern from hybrid origin of the Aspleniaceae family, descendent of the Macaronesian ancestral fern "Asplenium anceps". It lives exclusively in the Azores, that is a strict endemic Azorean fern. Its fronds are coriaceous like plastic and its rachis is very thick, dark garnet color and brilliance. A typical feature of this fern, which it shares with all the descendants of "A. anceps", is the existence of a small atrium at the base of the medium and lower pinnae geared towards the apex of the frond with one or two sori in its underside.