After many years I am still a beginner, not a master gardener, nor a landscape architect, nor any other qualified expert. I simply love plants—all plants, from the Redwoods in the California fog to the moss in the cracks of my stoop. That makes for a big garden! I like to watch plants. They are such super-slow motion creatures. That gives us time. These pages are some of my watchings.

Nikolas Majchrzak

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NARROW LEAF JAVA FERN

Microsorum pteropus

You won’t be able to keep this lovely underwater plant unless you have an aquarium or at least a goldfish bowl. if you haven’t, do consider the latter. The children will love it. (To see how to keep a goldfish alive in a bowl–few seem to be able to do it, but it’s easy if you know how–see the next post, “Java Fern – Addendum”)

If you try to grow aquatic plants in a fish bowl or an aquarium that is near a window, you will grow more algae than lovely plants. If you give them less light, most aquarium plants die. Enter the Java Fern. It can thrive in dim light.

Java Ferns are unusual plants for another reason. They have roots, but the roots should not be planted in the substrate–that’s the fancy name aquarists call the soil-like base in an aquarium. It is usually gravel or sand. If Java Fern roots are planted, the plant will rot and die. Like tree orchids, these plants pick up their nutrients from what surrounds them, not from the soil. Instead of planted roots a Java Fern needs to be anchored to a rock or a piece of water-logged driftwood. 

Still another odd thing about Java Ferns is that they reproduce asexually by a process called “vegetative apomixis,” producing baby plants on the leaves of adult plants.

vegetative apomixis on a Java Fern

There are some houseplants that do it as well. Kalanchoe daigremontiana, “Mother of Thousands,” is one. It produces babies along the perimeter of its leaves. It is also known as “Mexican Hat Plant.” It does look a bit like a Mexican sombrero with tassels. 

Kalanchoe daigrfemontiana

Java Ferns seem to have specific  “mother-leaves,” for not all leaves will bear children. Usually it is old or injured leaves that produce the new plants. 

baby Java Fern reaching for the substrate

First bumps appear on the underside of a mother leaf, looking like there is something wrong with the plant. The bumps turn into tiny roots and leaves. Soon the roots are reaching toward the substrate for some kind of perch while the leaves begin to look like papooses riding high on their mother’s back. Once the new plants root themselves on a piece of wood or stone, the mother leaf dies. 

A juvenile plant on a mother leaf

You can buy a Java Fern in most pet stores. You may find them in a planted aquarium or from a special plant tank. Another way to get Java Ferns is in a plastic tube. The tube keeps them alive on the store shelves, as well as during shipping and handling, or even in your carry-on luggage when flying. 

These tubes are the modern versions of the “Wardian Case.”  In the 1800’s when European botanists were searching for exotic garden flowers in the Orient, the Americas, and South Africa, few specimens survived the sea voyage. Botanists who had risked their lives to gather specimens watched in horror as their hard gathered floral treasures wilted and died before the ship reached home. Salt spray and lack of fresh water did them in.

Nathaniel Ward, a British doctor and avid botanist of the time, kept 20,000 plants. Avid indeed! He also kept moth cocoons in sealed bottles. He noticed in one of them a fern spore had sprouted along with a grass seed. Both plants lived in the sealed bottle over four years. A light bulb turned on over Ward’s head. He had a friend construct a glass box. It not only preserved plants from the London coal smog, but by the 1840’s it completely revolutionized plant shipments on long voyages. 

A Wardian Case

The Wardian Case led to the terrarium. When a terrarium was made waterproof instead of airtight it led to the aquarium. That opened a door to a whole new study of tropical fish and the hobby of fish keeping. Only recently have tropical fish keepers become underwater gardeners. The whole movement of “Aquascaping” has let to spectacular aquarium plantings like the one at the top of this post.

Wardian Cases are still available and some can be quite elaborate.

Modern Wardian Case

It has all come full circle. The plant-shipping Wardian Case led to the terrarium, which led to the aquarium, and now we get aquarium plants in modern Wardian Cases. The new version of a Wardian Case is that plastic plant shipping tube.

Although Java Ferns are aquatic plants, the shipping tubes are not full of water, but they are covered so that the plant remains moist.

A small hole in the lid assures fresh air without drying out the plant.

The plant roots come in their own separate Wardian Case inside the first.

The mystery and wonder of these new kinds of cases is the root box is filled with some strange stuff. First there are those little white balls you see in potting soil. It’s called Perlite, and is made from a volcanic glass with moisture trapped inside. When heated the tiny glass crystals pop like popcorn to 13 times their original size. The trapped bubbles make the pieces snow-white. Because of its light weight Perlite is used for shipping and in construction materials. It is also used horticulturally as a “soil amendment,” improving aeration by keeping the soil loose and preventing compaction.

The second mystery inside the new Wardian Root Cases is a thing that looks like ice, but is as soft as Jelly. It is a non-toxic, moisture holding polymer gel.

Perlite and polymer gel

The stuff was invented in the 1960’s to grow plants in the Israeli desert. It’s been around a long time but hasn’t been commonly used until recently. You can add it to your flower pots or even garden soil and dramatically cut down on watering frequencies. It is even possible to grow plants in polymer gel without any soil.

In your Top Fin tube you may get two or more plants tied together. Unravel them all and be sure to wash the gel off completely or else it will mess up your fishbowl or aquarium.  

Tie your Java Fern to a small rock or a piece of water-logged drift wood.

Place it in your fish bowl or aquarium and watch it grow. This is a slow-motion activity.

Come back in a year and be impressed with the progress of both Frankandorbob and his Java Fern. Or like Nathaniel Ward, come back in four years.