Ferns, once overlooked by plant lovers,
are finding the limelight.
You are Taiwan's treasure,
the elder in the global village.
You are a fern
the one who draws the question mark.
--from Tseng Wen-hsien's "Knowledge of Ferns"
Ferns in Taiwan have been the wallflowers of the plant world, waiting shyly in the background and avoiding attention from the general public. "Ferns neither bloom nor bear fruit," points out Huang Chao-cing, an assistant research fellow at the Endemic Species Research Institute, a research arm of Taiwan's Council of Agriculture. "They don't catch your eye when you walk into a forest. They're supporting characters."
Yet Taiwan's incredible diversity of fern species is creating a hothouse environment for interest in the oft-overlooked flora. More than 600 species from 37 fern families grow in Taiwan. As interest in ferns blossoms, moreover, these wallflowers are revealing their remarkable personalities. Ferns, it turns out, have a propensity to adapt to various environments and conditions. They sprout up in misty forests, barren lands of limestone, salt swamps and inhospitable volcanoes.
The variety of fern species in Taiwan is partly explained by the island's tremendously varied geography. Shaped like a single butterfly's wing, the island is skirted in the west by low-lying plains. From these plains the land slopes upward to the jagged Central Mountain Range at whose summit is Mt. Jade, the highest peak in East Asia, and then drops precipitously into the Pacific on the eastern side. The changes in altitude bring changes in climate. Mountain climbers and fern hunters have discovered that different species thrive in these different climatic zones, from the steamy subtropical lowlands to the chilly heights of the inland mountains. Taiwan's geographic and climatic variety provide refuge for many fern species.
Ferns are one of the oldest plants on the planet. During the Mesozoic Era, about 245 million to 66 million years ago, the leafy greens were a staple food for herbivorous dinosaurs. When the Ice Age began at the end of that era, a lot of northern fern species died out in frozen areas, but they continued to thrive in subtropical and tropical zones. Migrating ferns arrived in Taiwan on seasonal winds, which carried their spores from China, Japan and the Philippines to their new island home. While ferns escaped the catastrophe of extinction by ice, Taiwan benefited from the variety of species that continue to thrive on the island.
Because of the great age of many species and because they are still evolving, scholars disagree over the number of species that are native to Taiwan. According to a thesis by fern researcher Mou Shan-chieh, native species account for 9 to 10 percent of Taiwan's fern species. The rest arrived by aerial migration.
Just as many of Taiwan's fern species arrived with the winds, so too did the island's first fern experts. Robert Swinhoe, a British official dispatched to Taiwan in 1856, cataloged botanical information in his spare time and later published List of Plants of the Island of Formosa. The first botanical study written specifically on Taiwan's flora, Swinhoe's book recorded 246 local plants, including 33 species of the fern family.
After taking over Taiwan in 1895, the Japanese initiated a thorough investigation of Taiwan's plant life. Japanese botanists spent more than two decades on the project, and 81 percent of Taiwan's fern species were cataloged by 1928. The Japanese occupation, which ended in 1945, resulted in the founding of modern universities in Taiwan, and after the Japanese left, others continued the botanical research.
Charles E. DeVol, for example, a Quaker minister from the United States, had devoted himself to botany before he and his family moved from China to Taiwan in 1957. Considering education as one way to deliver God's word, DeVol took up a position in the Department of Botany at National Taiwan University (NTU). He also became the curator of the department's exhibition hall in 1959. In his 20 years in Taiwan, DeVol managed to spark his students' interest in fern research.
In 1971, one of DeVol's students found an aquatic fern in a lake on Yangmingshan, a mountain north of Taipei. He brought the unusual fern back to his teacher, and DeVol named the fern Isoetes taiwanensis DeVol, a rare fern native to Taiwan. Even today, the variety can only be found around its place of discovery.
In addition to NTU, National Chung Hsing University is another fern research center from the early days. Scholars Hsieh Wan -chuan and Tsai Jinn-lai, both of the university's Department of Botany, infected students with their love of ferns. Chiou Wen-liang, a graduate of the department and the current head of the Division of Forest Biology at the Taiwan Forestry Research Institute, credits the teachers with steering him toward fern investigation. "It was the road less traveled," Chiou says. He picked fern reproduction as the subject of his research because it had never been studied in Taiwan. "The propagation of ferns is difficult to observe, therefore most students study their classification." Chiou has been building on the history of fern research in Taiwan, and even today he focuses on gametophytes, a stage in plant reproductive cycles, and the preservation of rare species.
Although scholars have shown interest in this wallflower plant, the general public barely took notice. Only edible ferns or varieties with medicinal properties received any attention at all. Fried vegetable fern ( Diplazium esculentum (Retz.) Sw.) and the tender shoots of bird's-nest fern ( Asplenium nidus L.) are familiar dishes for locals, though many people do not register that either belongs to the fern family.
The Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum ), meanwhile, is used as herbal medicine to control damage from bacterial contamination, and its petiole, or leafstalk, can be woven into baskets and brushes. Also used as medicinal remedies are slender brake (Pteris ensiformis Burm.), common maidenhair ( Adiantum capillus-veneris L.), Cibotium taiwanensis Kuo and flying spider-monkey tree fern (Cyathea lepifera ).
Ferns began drawing attention recently for just being themselves, in Chiou's opinion, for three reasons. First, growing prosperity since the 1970s has given people more leisure time and prompted them to take more interest in their environment. Second, ferns are a new topic for ordinary people. "People used to pay more attention to flowers or butterflies," Chiou says. "But getting to know ferns gives them a sense of exploration. It's like entering a new world."
Lastly, Chiou notes that there is an increase in the number of volunteers devoting themselves to fern research. Nonprofit groups established for environmental education have taken root in Taiwan, and some of them train fern guides, to bring the plant to the notice of the general public. As a result of the new interest, plant guides, such as The Flora of Taiwan and Manual of Taiwan Vascular Plants, allow nature lovers to benefit from scholarly research and explore independently.
Lu Pi-feng and other plant enthusiasts started a fern club within the Nature Trail Association in 1999. "We hope that this club can provide a stable resource for people who are interested in ferns." Lu sometimes found it difficult to answer the questions of other volunteers, so she made up her mind to learn as much as she could about ferns. She spends her weekends with research fellows in the mountains collecting and studying ferns, and she has even cultivated some in her own garden.
The club members started a monthly gathering five years ago, and members take turns studying different species and reporting to the others. The fern club not only trains members as fern tour guides, but also arranges tours and holds symposiums and speeches for the public. Since many members of the club are teachers, the club also lends ferns to schools and promotes research. "The future of Taiwan's fern research has enormous possibilities," says Lu.
In fact, interest has already spread. "We have more fern gardens in Taiwan now," she says. "Gardens planted at different altitudes preserve various species. Even the Yangmingshan National Park is considering establishing a fern garden."
The fern garden of the Endemic Species Research Institute today contains more than 200 species from 32 fern varieties. The garden, designed in 1999, is located in the mountains about 1,000 meters above sea level in Taichung County, central Taiwan. The fickle ferns take a lot of care. "Some species prefer sunlight, and some don't," says Huang Chao-cing. "But our major problem is propagation." Spores can travel far, which makes controlling growth and the separation of different varieties difficult.
The gardens are helping to make ferns more popular too. While ferns are used in Western countries to decorate gardens, the Taiwanese traditionally preferred imported plants to decorate public spaces. In order to promote ferns' horticultural use, Lu's club last year helped decorate the hall of ferns at the Green Expo--an annual exhibition held in Ilan to promote environmental education and conservation--and introduced local species especially suited to home gardeners.
And ferns have their advantages. They rarely have insect problems, and most are easy to cultivate in Taiwan. "If you take a tour of Taipei's weekend flower markets, you can now find horticultural ferns," says Huang. "Businessmen didn't think fern cultivation was profitable, but now they see it is worth investing in."
In this case, however, risk accompanies profit. "We believe that some of the ferns selling in the flower markets are picked illegally," he said. Huang has heard that illegally picked common moonwort (Botrychium lunaria) can be sold for NT$1,000 to $2,000 (US$31 to $63) for 600 grams. Nor is there much legal protection for Taiwan's flora. The Council of Agriculture has drafted a proposal to address the issue, but it has yet to be made into law.
That people are now proposing ways to protect them, on the other hand, indicates the changing fortune of ferns. No longer a wallflower, the fern is standing out on its own, attracting botanists, naturalists and those just browsing for a plant with character to spruce up their homes.