daw8520
Cinnamon fern fiddleheads
This picture was taken in the Bluethenthol Wildflower preserve on campus. It is of what I believe to be a cinnamon fern (Osmundastrum Cinnamomeum) in the form of a fiddlehead. I remember my dad has always told me that fiddleheads are edible, and I always wondered why ferns are curled up like that, and usually have a wooly substance on them. They tend to grow in wetlands where the water table is close to the surface. What fiddleheads are are actually early fronds, or fern leaves. Spores are released from sporophytes on pinnae of fronds, usually from the bottom of the leaf, but this specific fern has a special fertile frond which is the tall brown shoot of sporophytes sticking up from the middle of a mature cinnamon fern. These fronds are very important in the life cycle of a fern, which have special life cycles, because the fronds hold sporophytes which release spores and these spores travel by wind or just fall off around the spore. The spores are what hold genetic information to grow a young gametophyte that will grow a sporophyte after fertilization occurs, which comes in full circle and eventually releases more spores which grow more, and release ore, achieving the ultimate goal of this plant- to reproduce. The spores mark the transition of the fern's life cycle form the diploid generation to the haploid generation.
Cinnamon fern fiddleheads
This picture was taken in the Bluethenthol Wildflower preserve on campus. It is of what I believe to be a cinnamon fern (Osmundastrum Cinnamomeum) in the form of a fiddlehead. I remember my dad has always told me that fiddleheads are edible, and I always wondered why ferns are curled up like that, and usually have a wooly substance on them. They tend to grow in wetlands where the water table is close to the surface. What fiddleheads are are actually early fronds, or fern leaves. Spores are released from sporophytes on pinnae of fronds, usually from the bottom of the leaf, but this specific fern has a special fertile frond which is the tall brown shoot of sporophytes sticking up from the middle of a mature cinnamon fern. These fronds are very important in the life cycle of a fern, which have special life cycles, because the fronds hold sporophytes which release spores and these spores travel by wind or just fall off around the spore. The spores are what hold genetic information to grow a young gametophyte that will grow a sporophyte after fertilization occurs, which comes in full circle and eventually releases more spores which grow more, and release ore, achieving the ultimate goal of this plant- to reproduce. The spores mark the transition of the fern's life cycle form the diploid generation to the haploid generation.