Asplenium nidus; The Bird’s Nest Fern: Developmental Studies and Its Conservation

Asplenium nidus L. commonly called as Bird’s Nest Fern, is a threatened, ornamental fern, which is widely used as novel foliage ornamental plant and local people use it in worship. The taxon is threatened due to over exploitation, habitat destruction and genetic barriers. To understand the constraints in the regeneration, reproductive biology studies are made. It is observed that more sporophytes are produced in composite population (13.3%) in comparison to isolate population (10%). This pattern is suggestive of the fact that the parental sporophyte is heterozygous for recessive sporophytic lethal. On the basis of the results obtained A. nidus was initially adapted for outbreeding with the capacity for considerable amount of inbreeding. The low potential of sporophyte production in isolate gametophyte could be the constitution of the zygotic genotype.