Herself's Houseplants

Isolating a gene that allows a type of fern to tolerate high levels of arsenic, Purdue University researchers hope to use the finding to create plants that can clean up soils and waters contaminated by the toxic metal.

The fern Pteris vittata can tolerate 100 to 1,000 times more arsenic than other plants. Jody Banks, a professor of botany and plant pathology, and David Salt, a professor of horticulture, uncovered what may have been an evolutionary genetic event that creates an arsenic pump of sorts in the fern.

“It actually sucks the arsenic out of the soil and puts it in the fronds,” Banks said. “It’s the only multi-cellular organism that can do this.” Fern’s evolution gives arsenic tolerance that may clean toxic land

Information:
A Vacuolar Arsenite Transporter Necessary for Arsenic Tolerance in the Arsenic Hyperaccumulating Fern Pteris vittata Is Missing in Flowering Plants[W],[OA] ( open source paper)

This easy to grow fern loves shade and doesn’t mind if you forget to water it occasionally. It also will tolerate cold down to freezing occasionally.  The fronts will grow 1′ to 2′ long indoors if it is happy.  It will fill much thicker as it ages so there will be no space between the fronds.

It will be happiest in a hanging pot near a drafty window, on the north or east side of your home.  Like all ferns the more humid the spot it is in, the happier it will be.

Rabbit’s foot fern is not as messy as other ferns, so you won’t have to clean it up as often.

Propagation is best done by division when it out grows its pot.  You can also put a pot next to the pot with your fern and place one of the fuzzy feet a little bit under the soil.  It will send up a new green frond at which time you can separate it from the mother plant.

This plant rarely needs repotting, unless the roots are escaping out the bottom, I’d leave it be.

This plant is from Fiji where it grows in the crooks of tree limbs. Peat moss combined with an equal amount of bark makes the best potting mix for Rabbit’s foot ferns.  But if you are someone who forgets to water your plants, I’d use a regular potting soil.  The peat and bark dry out fast.

While loved by everyone who grows them they are hard to locate at local nurseries and you’ll likely have to find an online source or an owner willing to part with a plug.

This fern grows well with epiphytic orchids if you are looking for a companion plant for your orchid.