The Long Winter

It's very difficult to post about green, living plants during the depths of winter in Wisconsin. I say this by way of apologizing for the dearth of posts in the last few months. December, January, and February are particularly challenging here in the Great White North, though in March things begin to green up, and by April fiddleheads abound. One of the highlights of my winter, however, is Darwin Day at UW-Madison, which I help to coordinate, and there was actually a fern at it this year! The graduate students in my department, Botany, put together a fantastic display about plants and how they have evolved, and a species of Asplenium, the birds-nest fern, topped the podium (not to be confused with the leafy cycad which is also up there; the Asplenium is in front).

I do have some more posts in the hopper as the end of winter comes into sight. I've collected a few new (actually old) fern guide books in the last few months, about which I'd like to share, and I've been thinking about fern fossils a lot lately, so I'm hoping to dig up (no pun intended) enough fern fossil information for a post or two. Stay tuned, the long winter is almost over here at No Seeds!