There
are a few different types
of ferns in Australia.
Ferns are vascular plants that differ from most other plants
because they lack flowers and seeds.
Instead they reproduce using
asexual spores which can be seen as dots on the underside of their
leaves, in most species. It is believed that flowering plants evolved
from ferns because some fossils have been found of fern like plants
that produced seeds. Here is some information about some species of
Australian ferns.
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Types of Ferns in Australia
Australian ferns are often large tree ferns. Tree ferns have a long
branchless trunk in top of which there is a crown with fronds, just
like in palm
trees.
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Rough Tree Fern (Cyathea
australis)
is a massive, up to 20 metres high tree fern, with a rough trunk with a
widely spreaded crown with 2-5 metres long fronds. Their spragia is
arranged in round clusters on the underside of leaves. Rough Tree Fern
is found in coastal areas of Victoria,
New South wales and southern Queensland,
as well as in whole Tasmania.
Lacy Tree Fern (Cyathea
cooperi) is an up to 12
metres high tree fern with a patterned trunk, spreading crown and large
light green fronds that are up to 5 metres long. Sporagia is arranged
in round clusters on the underside of fertile leaves. Lacy Tree Fern is
found in pockets in coastal Queensland, New South Wales and south
western WA. It is also found in tiny pockets
near Adelaide
in South
Australia, and Melbourne
in Victoria.
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Types of Ferns in Australia
Prickly Tree Fern (Cyathea
leichhardtiana) is
an up to 7 metres high fern with a spreading crown and shiny dark green
fronds. The trunk is dark brown and sporangia is arranged in round
clusters underside of the leaves. It is found along the coasts of New
South Wales and Queensland. Soft Tree
Fern (Dicksonia Antarctica) is an up
to 15 metres high fern that has got a spreading crown, lagre dark green
fronds that are paler below, and its sporangia is arranged in round
clusters along the margins of fertile leaves. Soft Tree Fern is found
along the coasts of Victoria, New South wales and southern Queensland.
As the Rough Tree Fern, it extends a
bit futher inland than the rest of the species described here.
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Bristly Tree Fern (Dicksonia
youngiae) is a
small, up to 5 metres long tree fern with a widely spreading crown,
dark reddish brown trunk, bright green fronds that can be up to 3
metres long. Its sporadia is arranged in round clusters that are found
on the margins of the underside of fertile leaves. Bristly Tree Fern is
found in small pockets around Brisbane,
Gold
Coast and Sunshine
Coast, and around Cairns
in north Queensland.
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
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