Met a retired botanist at the Seattle arboretum who showed me how to identify ferns by their spores

Was walking through the Washington Park Arboretum last Sunday and this older lady just started talking to me while I was staring at a sword fern. She pulled out a hand lens and showed me the sori underneath the frond. Said most people just look at the leaves but the real story is on the underside. She spent 20 minutes pointing out different spore patterns on like 8 different ferns. I never paid that much attention to ferns before but now I can't stop checking every one I walk past. Has anyone else had a random plant person change how you see something common?

2 comments

2 Comments

rubyreed18d ago

Got so fixated on the spore patterns you started looking under everything green, didn't you... happens to the best of us. That hand lens trick is the kind of thing that rewires your brain a little bit. Did she say if the spore arrangement ever varies between male and female ferns or is it just a species thing? Been wondering that since I started paying attention myself.

brooke48417d ago

Respectfully gotta push back on that one @rubyreed, I don't think male and female ferns really exist in the same way with spore patterns since they're all one plant doing both jobs depending on the lifecycle stage lol. Spore arrangement is mostly a species thing, not a gender thing.