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Robert Hainard (1906 - 1999). Bialowieza. Color woodcut. March 9th, 1956.

yes and i have to admit that was specifically a vague post at one single particular fern, Vittaria appalachiana: 

‘wow, that really doesnt look like a fern’ you might say. ‘that looks like a moss. that looks like the beard stubble of seedless plants’. but no. this is a patch of this species of fern. it is the only one of it’s extremely specific life style type known to man.  

i would like to take you all on a journey. imagine, for a moment, an alternate universe where a human dude loses his dick in a cave (stay with me here) and instead of dying, the dick forms its own goddamn civilization (i PROMISE this will make sense shortly). like it just learns to reproduce asexually into more identical dicks. technically this is a population of humans, just one that throws us for a loop because generally, thats definitely not how humans go on in life, but like technically it’s a population of humans. this is a very, very rough analogy for what this plant is.

allow me to explain how the hell this happened. those who have studied plants might remember the infamous botanical concept of the ‘alternation of generations’, which is known for like, fucking everyone up in every introductory bio class ever because although it’s nearly ubiquitous in plants, us animals dont have to worry about it, and it’s so alien it’s hard to learn. basically, the alternation of generations describes how plants reproduce in a cycle of two major stages: the sporophyte stage, which is a structure that produces spores, and the gametophyte stage, a structure that produces gametes.

for example, we know the sporophyte stage of flowering plants as the actual flowering plant, and the gametophyte stage as very specifically pollen and the ovules (inside the flower ovaries). pollen in and of itself isn’t the equivalent of sperm in human bodies; it’s the equivalent of a penis, which then lands on a stamen and grows into a microscopic structure that THEN produces the actual sperm for fertilization. the anthers of a plant do not produce sperm; they produce things that grow into penises that then produce sperm, which then fertilize the egg cells (produced by the ovules inside the flower ovaries) that grow into a new sporophyte in the form of a seed and it’s subsequent mature plant. yes this is wild and again, its notoriously one of the hardest things to learn and teach in biology, but stay with me here. 

in ferns and nonflowering plants, this cycle is a bit more evident; ferns produce spores, which then land and germinate into the fern gametophytes, which look like this and can be seen with the naked eye: 

these then grow male and female reproductive parts that produce the plant equivalent of sperm and eggs. like human sperm, fern sperm are flagellated. unlike human sperm, fern sperm are able to sense pheromones from other gametophytes nearby and literally swim through water out in the open to have sexy times in the mud, which i thought i would mention because it terrifies me. this sperm then fertilizes the egg in another gametophyte, and the new fern literally bursts chest buster style out of the gametophyte into a new baby fern. the entire life cycle looks like this: 

which brings us back to Vittaria appalachiana, the only currently known fern that does not have a sporophyte stage. 

things about this: 

1. there is no fern on this fern. this fern has evolved past the mortal fern form. it has ascended. it has deleted like, 95% of the chart above in favor of only the mature gametophyte on the upper right

2. this fern reproduces exclusively by budding. like. asexually. like, i mentioned earlier in this post that the gametophytes produce sperm and ovules and have sex, but nah. not for these lads. they gave that up long ago. now each individual just makes tiny organs that fall off and grow into identical fern gametophytes, and like technically this should be like…..really bad? like theres a reason for sexual intercourse, and that’s because it lets genes get recombined into more resilient offspring so you dont end up with inbreeding and all that awful stuff, as well as allowing for evolution and diversity within a population and all that. but somehow, this species has circumvented this with the absolutely galaxy brain take that you cant have problems with inbreeding if you dont breed. like, sure, it theoretically slows evolution down to a goddamn crawl and makes it incredibly vulnerable to disease, but like. sure. its made it this long, somehow

3. these ferns live in caves. in the grand scheme of things this isn’t a big deal, because like, plenty of fern species love caves for several primary niche ecological reasons that i wont go into here, but one of the reasons V. appalachiana is the only known fern to only live like this is because the gametophyte stage in ferns isn’t made to last, it’s made to have sex and die. there’s little to no protection from the sun on a gametophyte. it’s prone to drying out. it’s less resilient to temperature extremes than a fully grown plant would be. there are so many reasons why, in theory, to us mere mortals, evolving to live eternally in the (arguably) most vulnerable stage of one’s life cycle in a cave where temperatures regularly get low, in a region where winter is a thing, would like, a terrible idea. 

but….Vittaria appalachiana is an absolute chad. 

why.