Identifying baby Lecanopteris?

[carbonetc]

Propagating Hydnophytum and Myrmecodia is straightforward enough, but with Lecanopteris and their spores I imagine that they aren't so much deliberately propagated as haphazardly scattered throughout your growing area. Does anyone have any experience with sowing Lecanopteris spores? Or has anyone discovered self-sown Lecanopteris plantlets in their greenhouses? I've been growing various Lecanopteris for a year or so, and though I've never tried propagating them, I do see unidentified plants popping up in other pots with leaves very similar to Lecanopteris. None of these plantlets have ant structures that I've noticed, but I'm afraid to weed them just in case such a structure might develop one day. I guess I'm trying to get a feel for the odds that these might actually be Lecanopteris. If there's some resource out there with photos of various Lecanopteris species taken soon after sprouting, that would be extremely helpful.

[Andreas Wistuba]

Young Lecanopteris show a swollen rhizome very early.

If the rhizome is not swollen when the fronds are 1-2 cm long, it's not a Lecanopteris.

All the best

Andreas

[Hatchimotoshinzan]

I had heard of very little in the way of sexual reproduction/propagation in Lecanopteris among hobbyists and the consensus among some was that the spores were generally infertile. I was not able to get much more information than that so I sowed a leaf full of sporangia on a sterilized, (microwaved) and cooled tray of pure sphagnum peat treated with Captan fungicide. That was four years ago and I have a 2 cm wide (rhizome) and less than 4 cm wide rhizome at present. Out of about 8 sporangial clusters this is what is left. They are doing well and Andreas is correct that they start to show rhizome growth almost immediately. Obviously, this is not a fast process and the reason why most prefer dealing with vegetative propagation.