Spiny Treefern (Cyathea manniana)
Wandering through the forests of the Vumba can be a bit of a time warp at the best of times but wait until you arrive in one of the groves of treeferns, hidden in the heart of the forest. The Spiny Treefern is also known as Cyathea manniana and its last name has nothing to do with ‘tomorrow’. On the contrary, these plants have been around since uncountable yesterdays. Hold your breath, blink your eyes and wonder if a Stegosaurus could be waiting to stick its Jurrasic head around the corner. In fact, compared to the treeferns even the dinosaurs are newcomers to our planet. The fern’s ancestors were the ruling class nearly 400 million years ago, before the first animals crawled onto land and long before these creatures grew into dinosaurs. Spiny treeferns like the dark and the wet of the forest interior and you need to undertake more than a stroll to see them. They do like company, especially their own. Where you see one, you’ll see a whole lot of them. One reason is they like to keep their feet wet and congregate around the seepage zones of mountain streams, but the main reason is the unusual way they reproduce. These treeferns are unique in that they grow so-called stolons from the main trunk. This is a root-like branch that will slowly grow back into the ground; spread for a couple of meters; pop-up again, and grow into a new neighbour. Even though the young stolons hanging from the old trunk may look rather phallic, there is nothing sexual going on. This is what’s called vegetative reproduction. No sex, still babies. Ferns have been doing it for one heck of a long time, so it must work.