Tag: christmas fern

@geopsych ID’d these fungi as Turkey Tails, and I have to agree; the turkey-tailfeather-like morphology is hard to ignore.

I would give a specific species/genus but it appears that Turkey Tails is sometimes a lumped name of a handful of shelf fungi of north america.

I’ll let MushroomExpert.com take it from here when it comes to this group and how to tell its similar mimics apart from each other. I personally do not have the patience to try to figure out the exact identity of these fungi in the photos.

IM SURE THESE ARE CHRISTMAS FERNS (Polystichum acrostichoides)! I have never see  so many in the wild before. They were scattered all about the sparser part of the woods (not far from the Canadian Hemlock zone).

I took some fertile spore-frond bits, but I haven’t sown them yet so…. fuck. Will have to try again when I have more on-hand equipment for such a thing.

Sparingly collected these fertile Christmas Fern (Polystichum acrostichoides) fronds from the neighbor’s woodlot I got to walk in yesterday. I don’t have fancy expensive equipment like petri dishes or a microscope but I can at least do the drying of the frond/spores step. Already made the mistake on the first step which was to place the collected fronds into a paper envelope, instead I did a plastic bag.

image

If I succeed I will have my first ever attempt at fern propagation succeed + have another native plant species added to the gardens AND have available for selling in the greenhouse. If I fail well… not sure I’ll be so fortunate as to encounter this species again in that difficult-to-navigate forest, and for that matter during ripe spore season for it.