Once-pinnate Angiopteris

This giant fern, an Angiopteris from Sabah (Borneo) was actually a gift from someone in Java.  It had been given to that collector, by another collector, who had received it from still another collector (who is now deceased).  After speaking with someone from the Singapore Botanical Garden who was doing field work in Sabah, she mentioned that she had seen this species and at a distance, it looked like a member of the Zingiber (Ginger) family.  It was not until closer examination that she saw the massive rhizome and knew it to be a fern.

When the above plant was brought to Miami in 1997, its rhizome was approximately the size of a man's fist, and the rhizome only had two small fronds.  Today the plant stands approximately 12 feet high and has numerous fronds.  It immediately produced 11 pups and eight were initially removed.  The remaining 3 were left on the plant to grow.  They have not been removed as of yet, and some of them are quite large.

There have been attempts to collect spores from this fern and cultivate them.  Those efforts have been unsuccessful.