Ferns (Pteridophyta) Temporal range: Mid Devonian[1]—Recent PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N
Athyrium filix-femina unrolling young frond
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Pteridophyta
Classes[2]
†Cladoxylopsida Psilotopsida Equisetopsida (alias Sphenopsida) Marattiopsida Polypodiopsida (alias Pteridopsida, Filicopsida) †Zygopteridales †Stauropteridales †Rhacophytales

A fern is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants belonging to the botanical group known as Pteridophyta.^[3] Unlike mosses, they have xylem and phloem (making them vascular plants). They have stems, leaves, and roots like other vascular plants. Ferns reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers.

By far the largest group of ferns are the leptosporangiate ferns, but ferns as defined here (also called monilophytes) include horsetails, whisk ferns, marattioid ferns, and ophioglossoid ferns. The term pteridophyte also refers to ferns and a few other seedless vascular plants (see classification section below).

Ferns first appear in the fossil record 360 million years ago in the Carboniferous but many of the current families and species did not appear until roughly 145 million years ago in the early Cretaceous (after flowering plants came to dominate many environments).

Ferns are not of major economic importance, but some are grown or gathered for food, as ornamental plants, for remediating contaminated soils, and have been the subject of research for their ability to remove some chemical pollutants from the air. Some are significant weeds. They also play a role in mythology, medicine, and art.

Life cycle[link]

Gametophyte (thalloid green mass) and sporophyte (ascendent frond) of Onoclea sensibilis

Ferns are vascular plants differing from lycophytes by having true leaves (megaphylls), which are often pinnate. They differ from seed plants (gymnosperms and angiosperms) in their mode of reproduction—lacking flowers and seeds. Like all other vascular plants, they have a life cycle referred to as alternation of generations, characterized by alternating diploid sporophytic and haploid gametophytic phases. The diploid sporophyte has 2n paired chromosomes, where n varies from species to species. The haploid gametophyte has n unpaired chromosomes, i.e. half the number of the sporophyte. Unlike the gymnosperms and angiosperms, the ferns' gametophyte is a free-living organism.

Life cycle of a typical fern:

1. A diploid sporophyte phase produces haploid spores by meiosis (a process of cell division which reduces the number of chromosomes by a half).
2. A spore grows into a haploid gametophyte by mitosis (a process of cell division which maintains the number of chromosomes). The gametophyte typically consists of a photosynthetic prothallus.
3. The gametophyte produces gametes (often both sperm and eggs on the same prothallus) by mitosis.
4. A mobile, flagellate sperm fertilizes an egg that remains attached to the prothallus.
5. The fertilized egg is now a diploid zygote and grows by mitosis into a diploid sporophyte (the typical "fern" plant).

Fern ecology[link]

Ferns at Muir Woods, California

The stereotypic image of ferns growing in moist shady woodland nooks is far from being a complete picture of the habitats where ferns can be found growing. Fern species live in a wide variety of habitats, from remote mountain elevations, to dry desert rock faces, to bodies of water or in open fields. Ferns in general may be thought of as largely being specialists in marginal habitats, often succeeding in places where various environmental factors limit the success of flowering plants. Some ferns are among the world's most serious weed species, including the bracken fern growing in the Scottish highlands, or the mosquito fern (Azolla) growing in tropical lakes, both species forming large aggressively spreading colonies. There are four particular types of habitats that ferns are found in: moist, shady forests; crevices in rock faces, especially when sheltered from the full sun; acid wetlands including bogs and swamps; and tropical trees, where many species are epiphytes (something like a quarter to a third of all fern species^[4]).

Many ferns depend on associations with mycorrhizal fungi. Many ferns only grow within specific pH ranges; for instance, the climbing fern (Lygodium) of eastern North America will only grow in moist, intensely acid soils, while the bulblet bladder fern (Cystopteris bulbifera), with an overlapping range, is only found on limestone.

The spores are rich in lipids, protein and calories, so some vertebrates eat these. The European woodmouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) has been found to eat the spores of Culcita macrocarpa and the bullfinch (Pyrrhula murina) and the New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) also eat fern spores.^[5]

Fern structure[link]

Ferns at the Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens

Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica, growing in Nunniong, Australia

Like the sporophytes of seed plants, those of ferns consist of:

• Stems: Most often an underground creeping rhizome, but sometimes an above-ground creeping stolon (e.g., Polypodiaceae), or an above-ground erect semi-woody trunk (e.g., Cyatheaceae) reaching up to 20 m in a few species (e.g., Cyathea brownii on Norfolk Island and Cyathea medullaris in New Zealand).
• Leaf: The green, photosynthetic part of the plant. In ferns, it is often referred to as a frond, but this is because of the historical division between people who study ferns and people who study seed plants, rather than because of differences in structure. New leaves typically expand by the unrolling of a tight spiral called a crozier or fiddlehead. This uncurling of the leaf is termed circinate vernation. Leaves are divided into three types:
  • Trophophyll: A leaf that does not produce spores, instead only producing sugars by photosynthesis. Analogous to the typical green leaves of seed plants.
  • Sporophyll: A leaf that produces spores. These leaves are analogous to the scales of pine cones or to stamens and pistil in gymnosperms and angiosperms, respectively. Unlike the seed plants, however, the sporophylls of ferns are typically not very specialized, looking similar to trophophylls and producing sugars by photosynthesis as the trophophylls do.
  • Brophophyll: A leaf that produces abnormally large amounts of spores. Their leaves are also larger than the other leaves but bear a resemblance to trophophylls.
• Roots: The underground non-photosynthetic structures that take up water and nutrients from soil. They are always fibrous and are structurally very similar to the roots of seed plants.

The gametophytes of ferns, however, are very different from those of seed plants. They typically consist of:

• Prothallus: A green, photosynthetic structure that is one cell thick, usually heart or kidney shaped, 3–10 mm long and 2–8 mm broad. The prothallus produces gametes by means of:
  • Antheridia: Small spherical structures that produce flagellate sperm.
  • Archegonia: A flask-shaped structure that produces a single egg at the bottom, reached by the sperm by swimming down the neck.
• Rhizoids: root-like structures (not true roots) that consist of single greatly elongated cells, water and mineral salts are absorbed over the whole structure. Rhizoids anchor the prothallus to the soil.

One difference between sporophytes and gametophytes might be summed up by the saying that "Nothing eats ferns, but everything eats gametophytes." This is an over-simplification, but it is true that gametophytes are often difficult to find in the field because they are far more likely to be food than are the sporophytes.

Evolution and classification[link]

Ferns first appear in the fossil record in the early-Carboniferous period. By the Triassic, the first evidence of ferns related to several modern families appeared. The "great fern radiation" occurred in the late-Cretaceous, when many modern families of ferns first appeared.

One problem with fern classification is the problem of cryptic species. A cryptic species is a species that is morphologically similar to another species, but differs genetically in ways that prevent fertile interbreeding. A good example of this is the currently designated species Asplenium trichomanes, the maidenhair spleenwort. This is actually a species complex that includes distinct diploid and tetraploid races. There are minor but unclear morphological differences between the two groups, which prefer distinctly differing habitats. In many cases such as this, the species complexes have been separated into separate species, thus raising the number of overall fern species. Possibly many more cryptic species are yet to be discovered and designated.

Ferns have traditionally been grouped in the Class Filices, but modern classifications assign them their own phylum or division in the plant kingdom, called Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as Polypodiophyta, (or Polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of tracheophyta (vascular plants), although Polypodiopsida sometimes refers to only the leptosporangiate ferns). The term "pteridophyte" has traditionally been used to describe all seedless vascular plants, making it synonymous with "ferns and fern allies". This can be confusing since members of the fern phylum Pteridophyta are also sometimes referred to as pteridophytes.

Traditionally, three discrete groups of plants have been considered ferns: two groups of eusporangiate ferns—families Ophioglossaceae (adders-tongues, moonworts, and grape-ferns) and Marattiaceae—and the leptosporangiate ferns. The Marattiaceae are a primitive group of tropical ferns with a large, fleshy rhizome, and are now thought to be a sibling taxon to the main group of ferns, the leptosporangiate ferns. Several other groups of plants were considered "fern allies": the clubmosses, spikemosses, and quillworts in the Lycopodiophyta, the whisk ferns in Psilotaceae, and the horsetails in the Equisetaceae. More recent genetic studies have shown that the Lycopodiophyta are more distantly related to other vascular plants, having radiated evolutionarily at the base of the vascular plant clade, while both the whisk ferns and horsetails are as much "true" ferns as are the Ophioglossoids and Marattiaceae. In fact, the whisk ferns and Ophioglossoids are demonstrably a clade, and the horsetails and Marattiaceae are arguably another clade. Molecular data—which remain poorly constrained for many parts of the plants' phylogeny — have been supplemented by recent morphological observations supporting the inclusion of Equisetaceae within the ferns, notably relating to the construction of their sperm, and peculiarities of their roots.^[2] However, there are still differences of opinion about the placement of the Equisetum species (see Equisetopsida for further discussion). One possible means of treating this situation is to consider only the leptosporangiate ferns as "true" ferns, while considering the other three groups as "fern allies". In practice, numerous classification schemes have been proposed for ferns and fern allies, and there has been little consensus among them.

A 2006 classification by Smith et al. is based on recent molecular systematic studies, in addition to morphological data. Their phylogeny is a consensus of a number of studies, and is shown below (to the level of orders).^[2][6]

Their classification based on this phylogeny divides extant ferns into four classes:

• Psilotopsida (whisk ferns and ophioglossoid ferns), about 92 species^[7]
• Equisetopsida (horsetails), about 15 species^[7]
• Marattiopsida, about 150 species^[7]
• Polypodiopsida (leptosporangiate ferns), over 9000 species^[7]

The last group includes most plants familiarly known as ferns. Modern research supports older ideas based on morphology that the Osmundaceae diverged early in the evolutionary history of the leptosporangiate ferns; in certain ways this family is intermediate between the eusporangiate ferns and the leptosporangiate ferns. Research by Rai and Graham since this 2006 classification broadly supports the division into four groups, but queries their relationships, concluding that "at present perhaps the best that can be said about all relationships among the major lineages of monilophytes in current studies is that we do not understand them very well".^[8]

Uses[link]

Ferns are not as important economically as seed plants but have considerable importance in some societies. Some ferns are used for food, including the fiddleheads of bracken, Pteridium aquilinum, ostrich fern, Matteuccia struthiopteris, and cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamomea. Diplazium esculentum is also used by some tropical peoples as food. Tubers from the King Fern or para (Ptisana salicina) are a traditional food in New Zealand and the South Pacific. Fern tubers were used for food 30,000 years ago in Europe.^[9][10] Fern tubers were used by the Guanches to make gofio in the Canary Islands. Licorice fern rhizomes were chewed by the natives of the Pacific Northwest for their flavor.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns of the genus Azolla are very small, floating plants that do not resemble ferns. Called mosquito fern, they are used as a biological fertilizer in the rice paddies of southeast Asia, taking advantage of their ability to fix nitrogen from the air into compounds that can then be used by other plants.^{[citation needed]}

Many ferns are grown in horticulture as landscape plants, for cut foliage and as houseplants, especially the Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata) and other members of the genus Nephrolepis. The Bird's Nest Fern (Asplenium nidus) is also popular, as is the staghorn ferns (genus Platycerium). Perennial (also known as hardy) ferns planted in gardens in the northern hemisphere also have a considerable following.^{[citation needed]}

Several ferns are noxious weeds or invasive species, including Japanese climbing fern (Lygodium japonicum), mosquito fern and sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis). Giant water fern (Salvinia molesta) is one of the world's worst aquatic weeds. The important fossil fuel coal consists of the remains of primitive plants, including ferns.^{[citation needed]}

Ferns have been studied and found to be useful in the removal of heavy metals, especially arsenic, from the soil. Other ferns with some economic significance include:^{[citation needed]}

• Dryopteris filix-mas (male fern), used as a vermifuge, and formerly in the US Pharmacopeia; also, this fern accidentally sprouting in a bottle resulted in Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward's 1829 invention of the terrarium or Wardian case
• Rumohra adiantiformis (floral fern), extensively used in the florist trade
• Microsorum pteropus (Java fern), one of the most popular freshwater aquarium plants.
• Osmunda regalis (royal fern) and Osmunda cinnamomea (cinnamon fern), the root fiber being used horticulturally; the fiddleheads of O. cinnamomea are also used as a cooked vegetable
• Matteuccia struthiopteris (ostrich fern), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in North America
• Pteridium aquilinum or Pteridium esculentum (bracken), the fiddleheads used as a cooked vegetable in Japan and are believed to be responsible for the high rate of stomach cancer in Japan. It is also one of the world's most important agricultural weeds, especially in the British highlands, and often poisons cattle and horses.
• Diplazium esculentum (vegetable fern), a source of food for some native societies
• Pteris vittata (brake fern), used to absorb arsenic from the soil
• Polypodium glycyrrhiza (licorice fern), roots chewed for their pleasant flavor
• Tree ferns, used as building material in some tropical areas
• Cyathea cooperi (Australian tree fern), an important invasive species in Hawaii
• Ceratopteris richardii, a model plant for teaching and research, often called C-fern

Culture[link]

Blätter des Manns Walfarn. by Alois Auer, Vienna: Imperial Printing Office, 1853

Pteridologist[link]

The study of ferns and other pteridophytes is called pteridology. A pteridologist is a specialist in the study of pteridophytes in a broader sense that includes the more distantly related lycophytes.

Pteridomania[link]

"Pteridomania"' is a term for the Victorian era craze of fern collecting and fern motifs in decorative art including pottery, glass, metals, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture "appearing on everything from christening presents to gravestones and memorials." The fashion for growing ferns indoors led to the development of the Wardian case, a glazed cabinet that would exclude air pollutants and maintain the necessary humidity.^[11]

Barnsley fern created using chaos game, through an Iterated function system (IFS).

The dried form of ferns was also used in other arts, being used as a stencil or directly inked for use in a design. The botanical work, The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland, is a notable example of this type of nature printing. The process, patented by the artist and publisher Henry Bradbury, impressed a specimen on to a soft lead plate. The first publication to demonstrate this was Alois Auer's The Discovery of the Nature Printing-Process.

New Zealand icon[link]

The silver fern in particular has a prominent place within New Zealand culture. Its leaf features as the emblem of many of the country's top national sports teams, including the eponymous Silver Ferns and the All Blacks.

Folklore[link]

Ferns figure in folklore, for example in legends about mythical flowers or seeds.^[12] In Slavic folklore, ferns are believed to bloom once a year, during the Ivan Kupala night. Although alleged to be exceedingly difficult to find, anyone who sees a "fern flower" is thought to be guaranteed to be happy and rich for the rest of their life. Similarly, Finnish tradition holds that one who finds the "seed" of a fern in bloom on Midsummer night will, by possession of it, be guided and be able to travel invisibly to the locations where eternally blazing Will o' the wisps called aarnivalkea mark the spot of hidden treasure. These spots are protected by a spell that prevents anyone but the fern-seed holder from ever knowing their locations.^[13]

Misunderstood names[link]

Several non-fern plants are called "ferns" and are sometimes confused with true ferns. These include:

• "Asparagus fern"—This may apply to one of several species of the monocot genus Asparagus, which are flowering plants.
• "Sweetfern"—A flowering shrub of the genus Comptonia.
• "Air fern"—A group of animals called hydrozoan that are distantly related to jellyfish and corals. They are harvested, dried, dyed green, and then sold as a "plant" that can "live on air". While it may look like a fern, it is merely the skeleton of this colonial animal.
• "Fern bush"—Chamaebatiaria millefolium—a rose family shrub with fern-like leaves.

In addition, the book Where the Red Fern Grows has elicited many questions about the mythical "red fern" named in the book. There is no such known plant, although there has been speculation that the oblique grape-fern, Sceptridium dissectum, could be referred to here, because it is known to appear on disturbed sites and its fronds may redden over the winter. Also, the autumn fern, Dryopteris erythrosora, is well-known for its copper-red color.

Gallery[link]

• 

  Adiantum lunulatum

• 

  Fern leaf, probably Blechnum nudum

• 

  A tree fern unrolling a new frond

• 

  Tree fern, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  Tree ferns, probably Dicksonia antarctica

• 

  "Filicinae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904

• 

  Unidentified tree fern in Oaxaca

• 

  Tree Fern Spores San Diego, CA

• 

  Leaf of fern

• 

  Unidentified fern with spores showing in Rotorua, NZ.

• 

  Ferns in one of many natural Coast Redwood undergrowth settings Santa Cruz, CA.

• 

  Nature prints in The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland used fronds to produce the plates

• 

  A young, newly-formed fern frond

• 

  Fern fronds

• 

  Fern bed under a forest canopy in woods near Franklin, Virginia

• 

  Pyrrosia piloselloides, Dragon's Scale, in Malaysia

• 

  Fern growing on a wall

• 

  Spores of Dryopteris filix-mas

See also[link]

• British Pteridological Society
• Fern gall
• Fern spike
• Fern sports
• Fiddlehead greens
• Pteridomania

References[link]

• Pryer, Kathleen M., Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith, Raymond Cranfill, Paul G. Wolf, Jeffrey S. Hunt and Sedonia D. Sipes. 2001. Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants. Nature 409: 618–622 (abstract here).
• Pryer, Kathleen M., Eric Schuettpelz, Paul G. Wolf, Harald Schneider, Alan R. Smith and Raymond Cranfill. 2004. Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences. American Journal of Botany 91:1582–1598 (online abstract here).
• Moran, Robbin C. (2004). A Natural History of Ferns. Portland, OR: Timber Press. ISBN 0-88192-667-1.
• Lord, Thomas R. (2006). Ferns and Fern Allies of Pennsylvania. Indiana, PA: Pinelands Press. [1]

External links[link]

Wikispecies has information related to: Pteridophyta

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pteridophyta

• Tree of Life Web Project: Filicopsida
• A classification of the ferns and their allies
• A fern book bibliography
• Register of fossil Pteridophyta
• L. Watson and M.J. Dallwitz (2004 onwards). The Ferns (Filicopsida) of the British Isles.
• Ferns and Pteridomania in Victorian Scotland
• Non-seed plant images at bioimages.vanderbilt.edu
• "American Fern Society"
• "British Pteridological Society"
• Checklist of Ferns and Lycophytes of the World

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Zoë Keating
Zoë Keating performing at eTech in 2009.
Background information
Birth name	Zoë Clare Keating
Born	(1972-02-02) February 2, 1972 (age 40) Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Modern classical, cello rock
Occupations	Composer, producer
Instruments	Cello
Associated acts	Rasputina, Imogen Heap, Amanda Palmer, Melissa Barak
Website	www.zoekeating.com

Zoë Keating (born February 2, 1972) is a Canadian-born cellist and composer based in San Francisco, California.

In her solo performances and recordings (particularly the ongoing project she calls "One Cello x 16"), she uses live electronic sampling and repetition in order to layer the sound of her cello, creating rhythmically dense musical structures. Zoë's self-produced album One Cello x 16: Natoma has four times made it to #1 on the iTunes classical charts. Keating is the recipient of a 2009 Performing Arts grant from the Creative Capital Foundation.

Music career[link]

This section is incomplete. Please help to improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (June 2010)

Keating also served from 2002 to 2006 as second chair cellist in the cello rock band Rasputina. She is featured on Amanda Palmer's debut solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer. In January 2011, Keating won the award for Contemporary Classical Album from The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards.^[1]

Personal life[link]

This section is incomplete. Please help to improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (June 2010)

Keating was born in Guelph, Ontario on (1972-02-02)February 2, 1972 to an English mother and an American father. She began playing the cello at the age of eight and attended Sarah Lawrence College in New York. She is also an information architect and has worked on projects for the Research Libraries Group and the Database of Recorded American Music.

In March 2010, Keating announced via her website that she was expecting her first child with her partner Jeff in May.^[2] She gave birth to a son, Alex, on May 12, 2010.^[3]

Discography[link]

This section may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this section if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (June 2010)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zoë Keating

• Zoe Keating's Official Website
• Zoë Keating on Twitter
• Rasputina's Official Website
• An Exclusive interview with Zoe Keating at Bar Hop Sessions
• Jad Abumrad interviews Zoe Keating on WNYC's Radiolab
• "Zoe Keating unabridged" -(Wired interview)
  • Performing 2 pieces

Five or 5 Star(s) or star(s) may refer to:

• Five-star rank, a senior military rank
• A grading of a hotel, restaurant, movie, TV show, theatre or musical work or performance - see star (classification)
• Five Star (film), South Indian Tamil film
• Five Star Production, a Thai film production company
• Five Star Final, 1931 film
• The Five Star Stories or Five Star Monogatari, manga series and 1989 film
• Five Star Theater, American 1930s radio series
• Five Star Jubilee, a 1961 NBC-TV program
• Five Star Jet Center, and Five Star Flight Academy, at Barnes Municipal Airport, Westfield, MA, USA
• Five Star Publishing, fiction imprint of Gale (Cengage)
• Five Star Bus Company, Inc, in the Philippines
• 5 Star (supermarkets), an Australian group, competitors of IGA (Australian supermarket group)
• UEFA elite stadiums (known as 5 star stadiums until 2006), football stadiums graded on suitability to host major matches
• Five-starred red flag or Five-star red flag, the Flag of the People's Republic of China
• Five Star, a triangular shaped and powerful firecracker manufactured in the Philippines
• Five star energy rating system, a No load power#Policies to reduce no load power for mobile phone chargers
• Five Star Supermarket (Ireland), a former supermarket chain in Ireland
• 5*, a UK TV channel, sister channel of Channel 5

Albums, EPs, music DVDs & songs[link]

• Five-star (album), 2007 greatest hits album by Japanese singer Yuki Isoya
• Five Star (album), 1990 eponymous album by the British group Five Star
• 5 Star (song), by rapper Yo Gotti

Bands[link]

• Five Star, a British pop group from Romford, Essex
• Five Stars (Bulgarian group), includes Svetlozar Hristov, singer about Torbalan
• The Five Stars, a Samoan musical group

See also[link]

• Five-pointed star
• All pages beginning with "Five Star"
• All pages beginning with "Five star"
• All pages beginning with "5 Star"
• All pages beginning with "5 star"
• For other numbers of stars, see Category:Star ranking systems.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Zach Galifianakis
Galifianakis in Austin, Texas, March 19, 2009
Birth name	Zachary Knight Galifianakis
Born	(1969-10-01) October 1, 1969 (age 42) Wilkesboro, North Carolina, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, film, television, music
Nationality	American
Years active	1996–Present
Genres	Alternative comedy, observational comedy, musical comedy
Subject(s)	Everyday life, self-deprecation

Zachary Knight "Zach" Galifianakis^[1] ( /ˌɡælɨfəˈnækɨs/ GAL-i-fə-NAK-iss; born October 1, 1969)^[2] is an American stand-up comedian and actor known for his numerous film and television appearances including his own Comedy Central Presents special. While initially more of an "underground" comedian, he garnered mainstream attention for his role as Alan Garner in the comedy film The Hangover and its sequel The Hangover Part II.

Early life[link]

Zach Galifianakis was born in Wilkesboro, North Carolina.^[2] His mother, Mary Frances (née Cashion), ran a community center for the arts, and his father, Harry Galifianakis, was a heating oil vendor. Galifianakis' paternal grandparents emigrated from Crete, Greece,^[3][4][5] and Galifianakis was baptized in his father's Greek Orthodox faith.^[6][7][8][9] His mother is of Scots-Irish descent.^[10] He has two siblings, a younger sister, Merritt, and an older brother, Greg.^[11] His uncle, Nick Galifianakis, was a congressman from North Carolina between 1967 and 1973. He attended Wilkes Central High School, and subsequently attended but did not graduate from North Carolina State University, where he was a communications major.^[12]

Career[link]

Early work[link]

Galifianakis' career began on television in 1996, when he played the recurring role of a stoner named Bobby in the short-lived sitcom Boston Common. Then he joined Saturday Night Live as a writer but lasted only two weeks.^[13] Galifianakis co-starred in the film Out Cold and had small roles in Corky Romano, Below, Bubble Boy, Heartbreakers, Into the Wild, Super High Me, Little Fish Strange Pond, and Largo.

He had his own episode of Comedy Central Presents, which first aired in September 2001. It included a stand-up routine and a segment with a piano, and concluded with an a cappella group (The Night Owls, introduced as his "12 ex-girlfriends") singing "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles while he made jokes.^{[citation needed]} In 2002, he was the host of his own VH1 talk show called Late World with Zach. It featured many of his friends and regular performers from the LA comedy and music venue Largo where he appeared frequently during this time period. One episode featured Largo regulars Jon Brion and Rhett Miller as musical guests. His next television role was as a coroner named Davis in the Fox drama Tru Calling, which lasted from 2003 to 2005.^[6] He has also appeared many times on Jimmy Kimmel Live and has made three appearances on Reno 911! as "Frisbee".

Galifianakis starred as Alan Finger on the Comedy Central show Dog Bites Man, a fake news program that caught people during candid moments thinking they were being interviewed by a real news crew. In addition, he was on an episode of the Comedy Central show The Sarah Silverman Program as Fred the Homeless Guy. He also had a recurring guest role as a doctor on the animated Adult Swim show Tom Goes to the Mayor and appeared in several episodes of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! in a recurring role as Tairy Greene.

In 2006, Galifianakis was featured in Fiona Apple's music video for the song "Not About Love" where he is seen lip-synching the lyrics to the song. A year later Kanye West employed Galifianakis and indie rock musician Will Oldham for similar purposes in the second version of the video for his song "Can't Tell Me Nothing". In June 2006 Galifianakis released the single "Come On and Get It (Up in 'Dem Guts)", a comedic rap/hip-hop/dance song which features Apple's vocals.

Galifianakis was, together with Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Maria Bamford, one of the four Comedians of Comedy, a periodic packaged comedy tour in the style of The Original Kings of Comedy and the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. They chose to perform at live rock clubs as opposed to comedy clubs to try to reach a different audience. Much of the tour was taped, and has been featured in both a short-lived TV series on Comedy Central and a full length movie that has appeared at SXSW and on Showtime.

On February 22, 2008, he made an appearance on the Jackassworld.com: 24 Hour Takeover. He interviewed various members of the Jackass cast.

Galifianakis starred in the independent film Visioneers which played in select cities in 2008. This was Galifianakis's first starring role in a film and was given a direct-to-DVD release. That same year, Galifianakis appeared in a web video series of advertisements for Absolut vodka, along with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, creating a parody of the Golden Girls in which one has a deep anger issue, breaking the fourth wall in exasperation and outright violence on the set.^[14] He also completed the pilot Speed Freaks for Comedy Central.^[15]

Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis[link]

Galifianakis has a series of videos on the Funny or Die website titled "Between Two Ferns With Zach Galifianakis" where he conducts interviews with popular celebrities between two potted ferns. He has interviewed Jimmy Kimmel,^[16] Michael Cera, Jon Hamm,^[17] Natalie Portman,^[18] Charlize Theron, Bradley Cooper (with a brief appearance by Carrot Top), Conan O'Brien and Andy Richter (with a brief appearance by Andy Dick), Ben Stiller, Steve Carell, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, Tila Tequila, Jennifer Aniston and Will Ferrell. His interview style consists of typical interview questions, bizarre non sequiturs and sometimes inappropriate sexual questions and comments.^[19]

Mainstream performances: 2009–present[link]

Galifianakis co-starred as Alan Garner in the hit comedy The Hangover and earned the MTV Movie Award for the Best Comedic Performance.^[20] Following The Hangover's release, Galifianakis was prominently advertised in subsequent films that featured him in supporting roles. These included G-Force, Youth in Revolt, and the Oscar-nominated film Up in the Air.

Galifianakis is currently a member of the regular cast playing a supporting role in the HBO series Bored to Death. He hosted Saturday Night Live on March 6, 2010 during the show's 35th season, during which he shaved his beard mid-show for a sketch, and then closed the show wearing a fake beard.^[21] He hosted again on March 12, 2011 and shaved his head this time, in a Mr. T-like hairstyle, which was allegedly supposed to be used for a sketch that never aired due to time constraints.^[22] In 2010, he starred in several films, including Dinner for Schmucks, It's Kind of a Funny Story,^[23] and Due Date.

On October 29, 2010, while debating marijuana legalization on the show HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Galifianakis appeared to have smoked marijuana on live television;^[24] host Bill Maher denied that it was real marijuana in an interview with Wolf Blitzer during an episode of The Situation Room.

In 2011, he returned as Alan Garner in the sequel, The Hangover Part II, which was set in Thailand.^[25]

In 2011, he voiced Humpty Dumpty in DreamWorks Animation's Puss in Boots.

Galifianakis will star alongside Will Ferrell in The Campaign, a political comedy directed by Jay Roach in 2012.^[26]

Filmography[link]