Growth of Excised Fern Leaves in Sterile Culture

Abstract

THE techniques of sterile culture have for some years been successfully applied to the elucidation of problems of the developmental physiology of roots and shoots¹, both of which possess meristems with indeterminate growth. More recently, the same techniques have been applied to a study of flowers and fruits², determinate organs which undergo only a limited meristematic development. Although detached leaves have been kept alive for varying periods of time³, and leaf disks and small whole leaves have been reported to undergo limited growth in culture⁴, so far as we are aware there has been no systematic attempt to use sterile culture techniques in the study of developmental problems of leaves. Because of its prolonged but limited terminal embryogeny, the fern leaf Seemed to afford favourable material for such a study.