In article , John Jordan
writes
This post is on my behalf of my 86 year old grandfather - who is quite
internet savy, but alas not into Newsgroups yet ;-)

He has a fern (houseplant) which according to him is what he calls either a
maiden hair fern or an asparagus fern. See pic below. It could be either or
neither I guess.

http://makeashorterlink.com/?F6FA21089

Well, the first thing is, that is not a fern. It is a species of
asparagus, Asparagus setaceus, (related to the asparagus we eat) and
colloquially known as asparagus fern because of its fern like foliage.

That is fortunate, because ferns don't actually flower! They have a
completely different life cycle from flowering plants. Flowering plants
spend most of their time in the sexual stage, growing up, producing
flowers, pollinating each other to produce seeds. Ferns are the other
way about. They have a very short sexual stage, during which they look
not much different from green slime/moss. From this forms the fern as we
know it, which is asexual and reproduces itself by spores (lumps of
brown powder on the underside of the leaf) with no need for any
pollination or anything like that. So - his plant is definitely not a
fern!

I've never seen asparagus fern in flower but this reference mentions the
flowers, and the possibility of (poisonous) black berries afterwards -
however, see the final link below:

http://www.plants-in-buildings.com/a...=true&letter=a

and a picture is he

http://www.realgardeners.co.uk/goodb...ous_plants.htm

There doesn't seem to be any reason why it should die. It is a plant of
moist forests, and that's not an easy environment in which to get a toe
hold - it makes sense for a plant in that environment to keep going as
long as it can once it's got established.

According to the link below, male and female flowers are on separate
plants, so unless you have one of each, the female flowers won't be
pollinated and won't produce seeds (and of course the male flowers won't
produce seeds), so your grandfather won't see the black berries.

http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/cgi-bin/p...+setaceus&CAN=
COMIND

(sorry - I haven't 'made a shorter link' - but it's the first Google
hit on "asparagus setaceus")
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"