Field of Science

Friday Fabulous Fern

Too much politics and not enough botany and your brain begins to rot, so let's have a Friday Fabulous Fern! Further in a effort to change the seasons, TPP will change gears and provide you with a botanical treat from the tropics.  Yes, our spring thaw was interrupted by several inches of snow, thus setting a record for snowiest winter ever in this location. Swell.  So here you go, no plant quiz on this one because the genus is too easy to get, and you'd never get the right species because this fern is a pretty narrow endemic, but TPP had a study site and lived within its range in far northern Queensland. This is Cyathea woollsiana, a really beautiful tree fern, and TPP does like looking up through their whorl of fronds. More correctly this is an arborescent fern, a fern with a tree-like growth habit, but they aren't trees because they don't make any wood, or branches.  Even still this species can grow to 6 m tall. Oh, yes, there were platypuses in the adjacent creek.

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