Albert's Greenhouse

I had a very nice Platycerium elephantotis some years ago which died under mysterious circumstances. It's really the only staghorn fern that holds much interest for me, other than the expensive and difficult Platycerium madagascariense. I think it's the undivided fertile fronds that attract me.

I got a small one in the mail the other day. I'm going to let it stabilize over the winter, and then I plan to mount it on a board and hang it in a hot and sunny place in the greenhouse.

Platyceriums, or staghorn ferns, are all large tropical epiphytic ferns with a unique growth habit. In nature, they grow attached to the sides of trees. Most of them can grow into massive colonial plantings. Platycerium elephantotis is from tropical Africa, and apparently a seasonally dry area. The fern can survive almost completely drying out, but it cannot survive constant moisture and is prone to fungal infections. Wet and warm summer growing conditions are follwed by a period of drier winter dormancy.

Sources are pretty unanimous in the statement that Platycerium elephantotis is synonymous with Platycerium angolense, an older name. The reasons behind the change in name are somewhat more obscure. While it is true that the P. elephantotis name is somewhat more descriptive of the growth habit, and that the range extends far outside of Angola, that's rarely enough evidence to institute a name change. Elephantotis does sound cooler.

Anyway, armed with a greater knowledge of the habits and desires of this particularly lovely staghorn fern, I will hopefully have more success with this new acquisition.

Platycerium links:

- The Platycerium Site
- Roy Vail's Platycerium Hobbyist's Handbook
- Some Dude selling ferns on his blog
- Information from Master Gardener Online