Platyceriums ... another black hole

[tinman10101]

So I've been researching platyceriums for a couple of months and found some cool peeps on here @Billeb & Izzy that introduced me locally to these plants.  With that being said, I live in crazy high desert that gets to 110F's in the Summer and routinely gets to the lower 30F's in the Winter.  It has snowed her 3x since I have lived here and our relative humidity is always hovering in the 20-30%.  Not the best climate to grow platyceriums and I highly envy all you guys that have coastal influence that can grow them outside.

With that being said, I started to research on how to grow them indoors and surprisingly have been success so far ... fingers crossed in the last 3 months since obtaining my first platyceriums.  The below pics are the start of my collection and I have jumped in full force.  I hand built the trellis with galvanized wire mesh used in concrete pouring and redwood framing.  Of course my wife would not allow some mickey mouse look in the house.  I also use Soltech lights and reached out to a couple of indoor platycerium growers on the internet who kindly offered me advice.  I will graduate to a Ridleyii one day but I need to feel confident enough and pick up more experience.  I also purchased a light monitor to measure lighting indoors to know exactly the range to grow each species.  Hoping we can start some thread and share experience.  

Cheers

Tin

 

Superbum:

 

Veitchii:

 

Bifurcatum Pumilia Normali (lower left):

 

[Tracy]

21 hours ago, tinman10101 said:

I hand built the trellis with galvanized wire mesh used in concrete pouring and redwood framing.  Of course my wife would not allow some mickey mouse look in the house.  I also use Soltech lights and reached out to a couple of indoor platycerium growers on the internet who kindly offered me advice.  I will graduate to a Ridleyii one day but I need to feel confident enough and pick up more experience.

Tin that is an incredible undertaking, showing a great deal of dedication.  It looks great too.  Wishing you success with this adventure.  I will try to find an old picture of my cousin's superbum growing in Vista.  A well grown specimen is amazing.  I have a couple growing that were gifts (cuttings), and one volunteer, but I don't know species on any of my Platycarium.  Unfortunately, I don't have any large trees with appropriate crooks to allow them to get really big.  I'll keep my eye on this new thread for other posts, both indoor and outdoor specimens to hopefully learn a bit more myself.

[Tracy]

A couple of sides of an unknown species of Platycerium that I mounted about 15 years ago on an Archontophoenix cunninghamiana. 

[tinman10101]

On 11/11/2025 at 12:40 PM, Tracy said:

Tin that is an incredible undertaking, showing a great deal of dedication.  It looks great too.  Wishing you success with this adventure.  I will try to find an old picture of my cousin's superbum growing in Vista.  A well grown specimen is amazing.  I have a couple growing that were gifts (cuttings), and one volunteer, but I don't know species on any of my Platycarium.  Unfortunately, I don't have any large trees with appropriate crooks to allow them to get really big.  I'll keep my eye on this new thread for other posts, both indoor and outdoor specimens to hopefully learn a bit more myself.

Thanks so much Tracy.  Your Platys look super healthy and I am envious you can grow them outside.  It does look like some form of bifurcatum from my untrained eyes but I could be wrong.  It's been an endless rabbit hole with researching and finding out there is a huge community or die hard collectors in Taiwan and Japan that are creating some of the most beautiful and advanced hybrids I have seen.  Far too expensive for my current wallet but I do believe many are being tissue cultured now.

Yes ... I would love to see a pic of the very large Superbum you stated.  I know they can get amazingly large in their native habitat and live for an extremely long time.  I am just a novice and still learning their morphology and habitat needs. Hopefully they will thrive in my dining room for many years to come.  This was just a natural progression from growing outdoors to indoors for ultimately, our real estate outdoors is now limited. Hahaha.  

Cheers

Tin

[epiphyte]

lovely display and collection!  5 years ago on facebook i publicly posted around 70 pics i've taken of staghorns here in socal.  and here's a public fb post about my friend and i growing platycerium ridleyi from spore.   

perhaps tracy is referring to the spectacular platycerium superbum specimen he shared a pic of in this palmtalk thread... 

 

recently in a discussion with google search ai (sounds so sci-fi) i shared this...

"conveniently, one of my google photos contained this description... Staghorn Platycerium Elemeria 2011 Fern and Exotic Plant Show at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden. Label says... "Platycerium Elemaria is a hybrid volunteer that a botanist found growing in Ernie Sanchez's former plant nursery in Pasadena. It is believed the parents are Platycerium elephantotis and stemaria. Most hybrids bear sterile spores as does this plant. Hybrids are apt to have somewhat irregular fronds or fronds intermediate to the two parents. Some hybrids are hard to establish as hybrids by the looks and various chemical test may need to be done."

In a 2018 email that Fernando Orellana sent to me he said, "When Barbara Joe [Hoshizaki] discovered this plant at the nursery of Mr. Sanchez she thought the parents were P. elephantotis and P. stemaria and her conclusion about these two parents was adopted by the Platycerium world, because it looks like elephantotis but the fertile fronds are not straight at the end, rather uneven like the stemaria. Our friend Dan Yansura conducted a genetic test about two years ago and discovered that the genetic markers of one of the parents was consistent with P. andinum, I don’t think this has been published yet but he mentioned it to me and also to some of the members of the fern group at the gathering in my house.""

barbara joe was such an incredible plant person.  she was extremely generous with her knowledge and plants.  at each fern show at the los angeles arboretum she would walk around the exhibit and share information about the entries.  here's a pic i took of her admiring a platycerium elemaria wonderfully grown by the very talented patricia marlatt...

 

the problem with barbara joe's theory of elemaria's parentage (which is only obvious now with perfect hindsight) is that neither elephantotis nor stemaria grow that well outdoors here in socal, unlike elemaria.  so yansura's paternity test pointing to one of the parents being andinum makes sense, since it can grow relatively well here outside.  it's the same with platycerium horn's surprise, which can grow outside here.  one of its parents, alcicorne, can grow outside here, unlike its other parent... madagascariense.  

one of the most overlooked aspects of staghorns, at least from my very biased perspective, is that so many other plants are really happy to grow in/on them.  i can never figure out the best preposition.  recently on a youtube video by a professional rose grower discussing the topic of the preponderance and proliferation of fake propagation videos, i commented a couple paragraphs, the 2nd of which contains a fun example of a staghorn making a perfect substrate for propagating another plant.  

"the basic problem is using cheap signals (views/votes) to rank content.  so the simple solution is to replace cheap signals with costly signals, such as donations.  for example, on your homepage you share some of your best and most useful content.  but imagine if “best” and “most useful” was defined by donations.  which would be ranked more highly on your homepage, your propagation videos or your videos debunking fake propagation?  currently we can see the relative popularity of these videos, but we can’t see the relative demand for them.  and even in cases when you can see the demand for something, like your roses, you’re not seeing the full demand.  this means that the chances are slim that your bestselling roses would also be the most highly donated for on your homepage.  once the “treasure map” on your homepage became obviously useful, everyone would clearly see and understand the terribly tragic problem with using cheap signals to rank things.  

since i’m here, i might as well share my fav rose propagation story.  my friend jerry hung a staghorn fern above his rose bush.  a stem from the rose was offended by being shaded by the fern so it grew right next to it and then above it.  over time the fern fell in love with the rose stem, and embraced it (grew around it), and the stem reciprocated by rooting into the fern.  so basically this romantic entanglement was a natural air-layer.  when my friend had to move the staghorn, he cut the rose stem below the fern, and now he has a rose bush growing and blooming from his hanging staghorn fern.  i’m guessing you didn’t know that roses and all sorts of plants love growing in staghorns ferns.  you’d never overlook another relevant gold nugget again if your donors could rank content on your homepage."

the point of plant friends is to improve our plant priorities.  so many of my fav plants i learned about thanks to touring a new plant friend's garden.  and when new plant friends have toured my garden, i take note when they get excited about a plant group that they'd previously overlooked.  sadly it's just not logistically possible for every member of palmtalk to visit each other's gardens.  pictures certainly help but, how many pics are on palmtalk?  more and more.   treasure keeps getting buried deeper and deeper.  my point is, i still like the idea of a fundraiser for palmtalk where we donate to rank everyone's pics of their fav plants.  i need a good excuse to dig up my pics of loran whitelock's plants and figure out which ones to enter into the contest.  naturally i took a lot of pics of his staghorns, which i shared in my fb post from 5 years ago, which was way too hard to find.  and one or more members of palmtalk need a good excuse to dig up and share pics from mardi darian's garden.  did he grow any staghorns?  i don't know.  sadly i totally blew my one chance to visit it while he was still alive.  now that he's gone my plant priorities can no longer improve his plant priorities, but his plant priorities can still improve my own.  

 

[tinman10101]

On 11/13/2025 at 11:19 AM, epiphyte said:

lovely display and collection!  5 years ago on facebook i publicly posted around 70 pics i've taken of staghorns here in socal.  and here's a public fb post about my friend and i growing platycerium ridleyi from spore.   

perhaps tracy is referring to the spectacular platycerium superbum specimen he shared a pic of in this palmtalk thread... 

 

recently in a discussion with google search ai (sounds so sci-fi) i shared this...

"conveniently, one of my google photos contained this description... Staghorn Platycerium Elemeria 2011 Fern and Exotic Plant Show at the Los Angeles County Arboretum & Botanic Garden. Label says... "Platycerium Elemaria is a hybrid volunteer that a botanist found growing in Ernie Sanchez's former plant nursery in Pasadena. It is believed the parents are Platycerium elephantotis and stemaria. Most hybrids bear sterile spores as does this plant. Hybrids are apt to have somewhat irregular fronds or fronds intermediate to the two parents. Some hybrids are hard to establish as hybrids by the looks and various chemical test may need to be done."

In a 2018 email that Fernando Orellana sent to me he said, "When Barbara Joe [Hoshizaki] discovered this plant at the nursery of Mr. Sanchez she thought the parents were P. elephantotis and P. stemaria and her conclusion about these two parents was adopted by the Platycerium world, because it looks like elephantotis but the fertile fronds are not straight at the end, rather uneven like the stemaria. Our friend Dan Yansura conducted a genetic test about two years ago and discovered that the genetic markers of one of the parents was consistent with P. andinum, I don’t think this has been published yet but he mentioned it to me and also to some of the members of the fern group at the gathering in my house.""

barbara joe was such an incredible plant person.  she was extremely generous with her knowledge and plants.  at each fern show at the los angeles arboretum she would walk around the exhibit and share information about the entries.  here's a pic i took of her admiring a platycerium elemaria wonderfully grown by the very talented patricia marlatt...

 

the problem with barbara joe's theory of elemaria's parentage (which is only obvious now with perfect hindsight) is that neither elephantotis nor stemaria grow that well outdoors here in socal, unlike elemaria.  so yansura's paternity test pointing to one of the parents being andinum makes sense, since it can grow relatively well here outside.  it's the same with platycerium horn's surprise, which can grow outside here.  one of its parents, alcicorne, can grow outside here, unlike its other parent... madagascariense.  

one of the most overlooked aspects of staghorns, at least from my very biased perspective, is that so many other plants are really happy to grow in/on them.  i can never figure out the best preposition.  recently on a youtube video by a professional rose grower discussing the topic of the preponderance and proliferation of fake propagation videos, i commented a couple paragraphs, the 2nd of which contains a fun example of a staghorn making a perfect substrate for propagating another plant.  

"the basic problem is using cheap signals (views/votes) to rank content.  so the simple solution is to replace cheap signals with costly signals, such as donations.  for example, on your homepage you share some of your best and most useful content.  but imagine if “best” and “most useful” was defined by donations.  which would be ranked more highly on your homepage, your propagation videos or your videos debunking fake propagation?  currently we can see the relative popularity of these videos, but we can’t see the relative demand for them.  and even in cases when you can see the demand for something, like your roses, you’re not seeing the full demand.  this means that the chances are slim that your bestselling roses would also be the most highly donated for on your homepage.  once the “treasure map” on your homepage became obviously useful, everyone would clearly see and understand the terribly tragic problem with using cheap signals to rank things.  

since i’m here, i might as well share my fav rose propagation story.  my friend jerry hung a staghorn fern above his rose bush.  a stem from the rose was offended by being shaded by the fern so it grew right next to it and then above it.  over time the fern fell in love with the rose stem, and embraced it (grew around it), and the stem reciprocated by rooting into the fern.  so basically this romantic entanglement was a natural air-layer.  when my friend had to move the staghorn, he cut the rose stem below the fern, and now he has a rose bush growing and blooming from his hanging staghorn fern.  i’m guessing you didn’t know that roses and all sorts of plants love growing in staghorns ferns.  you’d never overlook another relevant gold nugget again if your donors could rank content on your homepage."

the point of plant friends is to improve our plant priorities.  so many of my fav plants i learned about thanks to touring a new plant friend's garden.  and when new plant friends have toured my garden, i take note when they get excited about a plant group that they'd previously overlooked.  sadly it's just not logistically possible for every member of palmtalk to visit each other's gardens.  pictures certainly help but, how many pics are on palmtalk?  more and more.   treasure keeps getting buried deeper and deeper.  my point is, i still like the idea of a fundraiser for palmtalk where we donate to rank everyone's pics of their fav plants.  i need a good excuse to dig up my pics of loran whitelock's plants and figure out which ones to enter into the contest.  naturally i took a lot of pics of his staghorns, which i shared in my fb post from 5 years ago, which was way too hard to find.  and one or more members of palmtalk need a good excuse to dig up and share pics from mardi darian's garden.  did he grow any staghorns?  i don't know.  sadly i totally blew my one chance to visit it while he was still alive.  now that he's gone my plant priorities can no longer improve his plant priorities, but his plant priorities can still improve my own.  

 

Very cool post ... Thanks for the link to the photos.  I've been to Loran's garden back in the days but was more into cycads back then and did not notice all the beautiful Platys he had.  What a treasure and so sad there will never be another garden like that again.  Well, if you are ever in Santa Clarita, feel free to drop me a line if you want to visit a my garden. I love talking plants and see you are into many different types of genus.  Do you grow any in your Glendale garden?  I would love to see pictures. I dare not grow them permanently outside in SCV yet but perhaps a much hardy bifurcatum or vietchii once I feel comfortable and more canopy is developed.  

That's amazing that you grew Ridleyii to a sporing size.  I currently purchased two small 3" pots and growing them under heat dome at 85-90% humidty and 65-75F.  They seem to be doing fine so far although I have only had them a week.   I hope to post in years to come on this thread if they successfully grow and mounted and hung onto my interior wall. 

Cheers

Tin 

[tinman10101]

So ... I have been growing these indoors and what that eventually means during fall and winter is they do not stop growing.  I did not realize how fast they would grow or maybe I'm just fertilizing them too much ...  although I have tapered off with rain water for the past month and a half since we've been getting ample rain.  My Superbum has thrown out 3 new leaves and of course, each one progressively larger than the next so now the leaves are completely engulfing the mount.  I will need to remount this onto a larger plank.

  

I have also started growing the rarer species in a regulated indoor setting.  These are grown in a heat dome with a heated mat underneath.  Inside I have placed a hygrometer and with my Home Assistant Automation Server, I created a virtual thermostat with a smart plug for the heating mat to have the temperature stabilize at 74F.  Unfortunately, I am not able to regulate the humidity so it stays at a constant 80-95% but that doesn't seem to affect the growth.  They sit about 24" below a grow light that is set for 15 hrs/day.  It's been doing extremely well and now I am starting to see the first fertile fronds emerging from my Ridleyii.  One thing I have learned is that Platyceriums really do like to be almost bone dry before the next watering schedule, especially the Ridleyii's.  In fact, you would rather err to the drier side if possible.  Below species are 2 Ridleyii's, Vietchii, Bifurcatum sp. White, Wilinckii sp. Manda, and Elephantotis.  I will start to taper them off the humidity dome as Spring is closely approaching and then mount them on their own Sphagnum Moss planks.  

I had this amazing idea to expand my indoor Platycerium wall but the wife has axed that idea.  Now I have to figure out how to maximize the space above and below.  Stay tuned ...

[tinman10101]

Here is a closer look at my setup indoors for the more sensitive Platyceriums:

[happypalms]

An interesting challenging plant you have chosen to grow indoors. Never tried them indoors, but they grow very easily outdoors. 

[tinman10101]

On 2/27/2026 at 2:50 PM, happypalms said:

An interesting challenging plant you have chosen to grow indoors. Never tried them indoors, but they grow very easily outdoors. 

Unfortunately, I live in the high desert where my relative humidity is usually 25-30% and scorching hot during summers.  Not anything like the climate you are in but then there in lies the challenge.  I can only dream of having a lush humid climate outside like you do but we work with what we have and I guess zone pushing is part of the fun.  

I am sure your climate presents a whole new set of challenges as well.  At least inside, I can actually control the climate to an extent.  

Cheers

Tin

[happypalms]

8 hours ago, tinman10101 said:

Unfortunately, I live in the high desert where my relative humidity is usually 25-30% and scorching hot during summers.  Not anything like the climate you are in but then there in lies the challenge.  I can only dream of having a lush humid climate outside like you do but we work with what we have and I guess zone pushing is part of the fun.  

I am sure your climate presents a whole new set of challenges as well.  At least inside, I can actually control the climate to an extent.  

Cheers

Tin

I can relate to that having a challenge, my humidity rarely drops below 60 percent. 
It is possible to relate a microclimate but as you say your humidity is not on your side, plus the cost of setting up such an artificial environment and then the ongoing costs of keeping that environment. 
It might be time for a large greenhouse if you have the room and install an irrigation system. Iam up against the cold in my garden, but 2 degrees Celsius I can live with. 
Richard 

[arty.mc.fly]

Platycerium have been remarkably easy indoors for me provided their light and water requirements are met. A big breakthrough was using glass, open top watering bulbs to provide adequate moisture without removing the mount from the wall. Once properly set up, you can water at will with zero drips or potential for wall damage.  Much easier to hose them down in the greenhouse (Honolulu) but for indoor plants, this has made my life sooo much easier!

[arty.mc.fly]

Here’s a better photo to illustrate the watering bulbs. You can control watering speed by plugging the bottom of the tube with sphagnum. This helps the water slowly absorb into the medium rather than spilling down your wall. 

[tinman10101]

On 3/2/2026 at 7:32 AM, arty.mc.fly said:

Here’s a better photo to illustrate the watering bulbs. You can control watering speed by plugging the bottom of the tube with sphagnum. This helps the water slowly absorb into the medium rather than spilling down your wall. 

That is a great advice but I fear the constant humidity in the sphagnum moss for P. Ridleyii's might not be the best for it.  Regardless, thanks for the tip and I will try that on my more common species.

Honolulu ... geez why not grow them outside?  That is a pipe dream destination for me.  I guess if I lived there, eventually I would bring my garden indoors.  

Cheers

Tin