I'd seen this down the flower market and wondered what it was, it's a houseplant in UK.
Two cool things about this plant, it's an epiphyte, lives on trees and collects water and nutrients from the surroundings, and it's Eusocial. It sustains and nurtures weaker plants in the commune.
One plant, the epiphytic staghorn fern, Platycerium bifurcatum
(Polypodiaceae), may exhibit a primitive form of eusocial behavior
amongst clones. The evidence for this is that individuals live in
colonies, where they are structured in different ways, with fronds of
differing size and shape, to collect and store water and nutrients for
the colony to use. At the top of a colony, there are both pleated
fan-shaped "nest" fronds that collect and hold water, and
gutter-shaped "strap" fronds that channel water: no solitary
Platycerium species has both types. At the bottom of a colony, there
are "nest" fronds that clasp the trunk of the tree supporting the
fern, and drooping photosynthetic fronds. These are argued to be
adapted to support the colony structurally, i.e. that the individuals
in the colony are to some degree specialized for tasks, a division of
labor
Staghorn fern Platycerium bifurcatum.
I'd seen this down the flower market and wondered what it was, it's a houseplant in UK.
Two cool things about this plant, it's an epiphyte, lives on trees and collects water and nutrients from the surroundings, and it's Eusocial. It sustains and nurtures weaker plants in the commune.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eusociality
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