Summer Bonus Episode: A Clever Plant Worthy of a Wall Mount

enough science to make you sound like an expert. Now we are on summer break right now, but because Molly and I cannot stop talking about plants, we are bringing you some mini episodes to brighten up your feed and grow your plant curiosity. Throughout the summer, we'll be dropping incredible stories from growers, advice from experts, and we'll have some fun conversations around fascinating plant facts. For this bonus episode, we are sharing our favorite facts about incredibly community minded

stag horn ferns. So I just want to begin by letting you know that I am not into taxidermy, but I do love fake taxidermy. I find paper mache rainbow zebra heads extremely charming. For a while, I was obsessed with Dr Seuss fake taxidermy where he sculpted then mounted on these wooden boards, all these imaginary animals, like the delightful sea going dilemma fish or the google eyed Tasmanian wall gast. You should look them up because they are

super delightful. I even had a short lived soft spot for the Billy bass singing fish, and it turns out I'm not the only one. Apparently, Queen Elizabeth was so tickled by this novelty singing fish that she bought six of them and mounted one above her grand piano. That is true. But the reason I'm telling you all of this is because when I learned about the stag horn fern, I took an immediate liking to it. It is a plant with big, antler like fronds, and that makes it

look great mounted on your wall like a trophy. In fact, it's become a pretty popular house plant recently. And just like the resurrection fern, the stag horn is an epiphyte, so it grows on trees, but it's not a parasite. Instead, it absorbs any water that drops off of the tree, while its roots secured on the branches as it climbs. Now, our friend Michael Perry, a k mr Plant geek, calls the stag horn fern one of the funkiest of the ferns,

and scientists are still learning a ton about them. But here's some of my favorite facts about this regal and also very social stag horn fern. One, it has some pretty glorious fronds. Now, ferns have some of the best names in the business, partially because they look like what they're named after. Their Bird's Nest fern looks like a bird's nest, the ostrich fern fans out like ostrich feathers. The interrupting fern has missing sections and some of its fronds.

The kangaroo paw fern has you guessed it leaves that look like kangaroo pause. And the stag horn fern gets its name from its long, glorious, antler like fronds. And The Sydney Morning Herald has called these ornamental fronts the drop earrings and handlebar mustache of the plant world, meaning

they definitely draw attention. And even back in the nine seventies, The New York Times was raving about the plant in a column from F. Gordon Foster, author of the popular Ferns to Know and Grow Foster praised the unusually beautiful fern for its moose like antlers, and he advocated mounting one on a plaque and hanging it high in your bathroom where it could absorb moisture too. Do not remove

the brown part. In addition to those antler like fronds, the fern also has shorter eyed, flat leaves near the base of the plant, and these are known as shield fronds. These are super important because they absorbed the nutrients and water for the plant. And while these shield fronds start out all green and healthy looking, they eventually turned brown and dry out. But do not be fooled. While the shield fronds might look unnecessary, they're still alive and working hard.

They're important for anchoring the plant in place and for protecting that root ball a k a. The nutrient center of your plant. Three They've been around since the dinosaurs. According to the San Diego Zoo, part of the reason that stag horns look so different from other ferns with bigger boulder fronds that are less lacy is that they have a lineage dating back to the days of the dinosaurs. While the plants are native to tropical regions of Africa,

southeast Asia and Australia. Many botanists believe that the stag horns are actually the missing link between ancient and modern ferns. Four spores, not seeds. Unlike other plants, stag horn ferns don't reproduce via flowers of seeds. They have these teeny tiny spores that grow on the underside of those beautiful antler like fronds. To grow more stag horns, look for the green bumps hidden on the underside of those antler like fronds. When they turn brown, you can scrape them

off with a knife and harvest them. Another trick for collecting the spores is to cut off a frond and place it in a paper bag and wait for the spores to dry out and fall off the fronds. Then you can use those to grow baby ferns, or as they're actually called by botanists, pops. Five stag horns love community. Now.

One of the most incredible things about stag horns is that researchers have discovered that the plants take on distinct rolls to help each other out, and this usually happens when they're growing in clusters and nature so sently, The New York Times published an article sharing how ferns near the top of the trees have grown these longer, waxier, antler fronds, and those near the bottom take on a sponge eer quality with more prominent shield fronds, and the

plants leaves at the top make it easier to direct water to the other plants below them, and those near the bottom have adapted to absorb more water, so they're all coordinating, and researchers determined it was as if the ferns operate like bees in a hive, giving different roles to each other to best serve the larger community of plants so that they can grow and thrive together. I

love that. And finally, six, they eat bananas. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, one well known secret in the world of growing prize stag horns is to feed your fern bananas. As one cultivator told the paper, he used to watch his grandmother peeled the fruit like she was feeding her pet chimpanzee. Now in the wild, staghorn fern trapped falling vegetal and plant matter in their nest like fraunds, and it decomposes and acts like a fertilizer there. But

according to the article. The preferred method of most growers is to shed the fruit and just tuck a banana skin into the basil frounds, where you can fertilize the plant. Either way, the idea of a plant feasting on another plant skives some people out. As one subject told the Morning Herald reporter, even as a child, I wondered about the moral implications of a plant eating another plant, As

he elaborated, can plants be cannibals? I mean to me, that only makes me love the staghorn fernt even more. That's it for today's bonus episode, and don't forget, no matter what season it is or where you're at in your gardening journey, there's some incredible resources waiting for you on the Miracle Grow website. Humans Growing Stuff is a collaboration from I Heart Radio and your friends at Miracle Grow. I do hope you've loved these bonus episodes. Are show

was written and produced by Molly Sosha and me Mongay. Particular, the episode was edited and engineered by our pal Matt Stillo, who saved us a ton this summer. Thank you all so much for listening.