On ferns
This post shows some possibly interesting information about the distribution of ferns in a broad region centred on Canberra. It uses a sample of information from the database of ANPS Wednesday Walks (WW) and is presented here as part of a series of posts demonstrating, to members of ANPS (and anyone else interested) various aspects of what can be done with their data.
While adding records to the database I began to notice a number of fern species appearing. Since ferns are - in my book at least, if not Plantnet's - not flowering plants I thought it would be possibly helpful to put a separate indicator on the table Species.
This led to a search for a list of ferns. It appeared that "Ferns and Fern allies in the Canberra Region" was a pretty good place to start. This gave me a list of 76 candidate species and by a bit of crafty matching I found that my species table (derived from an overall list of plants) had 17 fern species and the WW had recorded 14 of these species. The four commonest species are shown in the following table.
To date I have entered up 70 sites and a surprising 56 of them have at least one fern species recorded. The 5 top sites - and it is possible/probable that adding more sites will change this list- are currently:
Overall the distribution of species per site is:
The next step is to show the sites on a map using an Earthpoint facility which coverts latitudes and longitudes in an Excel file to a .kml file which is read by Google Earth To do this I have used 4 icons: gold disc for 4 or more species; pink dot for 3 species; green dot for 2 species and white dot for 1 species.
The extent to which the top two categories appear in the areas one would expect to be damper is rather pleasing!
While adding records to the database I began to notice a number of fern species appearing. Since ferns are - in my book at least, if not Plantnet's - not flowering plants I thought it would be possibly helpful to put a separate indicator on the table Species.
This led to a search for a list of ferns. It appeared that "Ferns and Fern allies in the Canberra Region" was a pretty good place to start. This gave me a list of 76 candidate species and by a bit of crafty matching I found that my species table (derived from an overall list of plants) had 17 fern species and the WW had recorded 14 of these species. The four commonest species are shown in the following table.
| Species name | Count Of Sites |
|---|---|
| Cheilanthes austrotenuifolia | 36 |
| Pteridium esculentum | 23 |
| Asplenium flabellifolium | 17 |
| Polystichum proliferum | 10 |
To date I have entered up 70 sites and a surprising 56 of them have at least one fern species recorded. The 5 top sites - and it is possible/probable that adding more sites will change this list- are currently:
| Site name | Count Of Species |
| Waratah Picnic area and Penance Grove | 10 |
| Dasyurus Picnic area | 5 |
| Tinderries Top | 4 |
| Booroomba Rocks to Honeysuckle Creek | 4 |
| Booroomba Rocks | 4 |
Overall the distribution of species per site is:
# sites
|
|
| 4+ species | 5 |
| 3 species | 9 |
| 2 species | 15 |
| 1 species | 27 |
The next step is to show the sites on a map using an Earthpoint facility which coverts latitudes and longitudes in an Excel file to a .kml file which is read by Google Earth To do this I have used 4 icons: gold disc for 4 or more species; pink dot for 3 species; green dot for 2 species and white dot for 1 species.
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