Ferns

Ferns brighten the forest floor of the preserves with their elegant fronds of green. Identifying them is much easier when you know the name of their different parts. Frond, blade, stipe, pinna, and rachis are all parts of a fern. Most good fern field books include a diagram of the parts to help you out. There may be fertile and sterile fronds too, depending on the species, so it helps to know about them. Ferns produce spores instead of seed to reproduce and can be on a frond that looks entirely different or on the underside of a monomorphic fern pinna (leaf). Here are a few that were photographed recently.