Investigation And Analysis Of Ferns Introduced And Cultivated In South China Botanical Garden

Ferns are important part of plant diversity and very important for the survival and development of human and other organisms. Plant diversity has been destroyed and Ferns also could not escape this fate.South China Botanical Garden started Ferns Ex-situ conservation as early as 1970 s, and built the first Ferns special garden of China in 1980 s, form then the garden conducted extensive introduction and conservation works of Ferns. In this paper, we summarizes Ferns introduction, cultivation, propagation work in South China Botanical Garden, and then studied the adaptability of Ex-situ conservation Ferns and the related cultivation techniques, from that we aim to provide the basis data to direct the future introduction and selection work of Ferns, besides, we also would like to do some basic support work for the extensive use of Ferns. 1、 There were three periods that South China Botanical Garden introduced large quantity of Ferns, which were the early time of the garden building----recovery and development period(1973-1987), stable maintenance period(1988-2002),and rapid development period(2003 to present). A total of 57 families of Ferns were introduced, and they takes 2162 records. Among those, 1952 records are domestic introduction and 1952 records are foreign introduction. Now, there are 540 species of live Ferns belonging to 49 family. 2、 Among the 2162 records of Ferns introduced in South China Botanical Garden, the 7 families which are Dryopteridaceae, Polypodiaceae, Aspleniaceae, Thelypteridaceae, Athyriaceae, Pteridaceae, and Adiantaceae account for 50.74% of the total introduction number; the survival rate of the 7 family are descending as the order of Dryopteridaceae, Athyriaceae, Pteridaceae, Thelypteridaceae, Polypodiaceae, Asplenium and Adiantaceae. Soil growing Ferns present higher survival rate than epiphytic Ferns / stone growing Ferns. 3、 1546 records of Ferns introduced in South China Botanical Garden were mainly from seven provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Fujian and Yunan, which accounts for 71.52% of the total introduction number. The survival rate of Ferns introduced form Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan and Hainan is decreasing sequentially. The survival rate of Yunnan and Guangdong provice are more or less the same, and the two province of Fujian and Jiangxi which have relatively shorter introduction time present higher survival rate. Through comprehensive statistics, it can be seen that the survival rate of the introduction Ferns was decreasing from nearer to farther place and this is in line with the basic law. 4、 Considering the diversity Ecotype of Ferns, South China Botanical Garden breaded them using Division propagation, Bulbils breeding and Leaves breeding. As to different type of the Ferns, different cultivate stromal and measure were adopted to enhance survival rate, besides that Spore propagation was also studied. Based on the long long-term cultivation and management, 5 Ferns which having high ornamental value are recommended as the potential ones of further development.