BIG DOGS: In the 1970s, a co-worker gave Jerry Becnel Sr. a few little staghorn fern pups, the small reproducing pieces of the unusual tropical fern. More than 40 years later, Becnel and his wife, Jo ...

A: Epiphytic staghorns have two types of fronds: flat, sterile shield fronds and emerging, longer fertile fronds that resemble a stag's horns. It is the flat shield fronds that cling to the surface on ...

Your friend lures you into her study to examine her latest conquest. Beaming with pride, she points out her prized specimen. "Isn't he a beauty?" she asks, "It took me three years to get one that size ...

There is something otherworldly about ferns. Their fronds suggest feathers and wings, and so when looking at them you may think of taking flight, most likely into the pre-historic past when they ...