Fern Leaftier

Oddball Fern-Balls

During a recent BYGL Zoom Inservice, Ken Chamberlain (OSU CFAES, Photographer and Multimedia Producer) showed participants pictures he'd taken in Brown’s Lake Bog of ferns with tightly curled tips. A casual observer could possibly mistake the odd structures for emerging frond fiddleheads.
Published on
Authors
Joe Boggs

Oddball Fern-Balls

I received an e-mail message a couple of weeks ago with images showing the tips of ostrich fern (Matteuccia struthiopteris) fronds rolled into tight ball-like structures. One of the images showed a "fern-ball" opened to reveal a translucent caterpillar.
Published on
Authors
Joe Boggs