Historic staghorn fern comes home

Ellie Knight, Fallbrook Garden Club Special to the Village News

When Fallbrook Garden Club recently held its plant sale in conjunction with its biennual flower show, one of the featured plants was platycerium bifurcatum, commonly known as the ’staghorn fern.' But this is no ordinary fern, even though many Fallbrook homes are hosts to them.

In 1992, the Porter family took over the Fallbrook Garden Center, and converted it into a restaurant that is today a popular eatery. One of the features left from the original business was a gigantic ball-shaped colony of staghorn ferns located at the front entrance.

Unfortunately, this past winter, a windstorm knocked it down, loosening the plants. Since it was essentially too heavy to move, when Dawn Young asked if the Fallbrook Garden Club could have it, Clay Porter readily agreed. Subsequently, plant sale committee members dismantled and mounted the individual plants to sell at the April 30 sale, raising over $400 for our various community projects including scholarships from these plants alone.

After the sale, committee members presented a replacement mounted staghorn fern to the Garden Center Café to thank them for their contribution.

Native to tropical and temperate areas of South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Guinea, staghorn ferns are epiphytic (air plants) and have tufted roots, with two types of fronds, basal and fertile.

Basal fronds are sterile, shield or kidney shaped and laminate against the tree and protect the fern's roots from damage and desiccation. The top margin of these fronds forms an open crown of lobes and thereby catches falling forest litter and water.

Fertile fronds bear spores, are antler shaped and jut out or hang from the rhizome. They will form colonies of graceful plants in a large cluster. They love to have an occasional rotten banana placed in the crown as a treat!

For more information on the Fallbrook Garden Club, visit http://www.fallbrookgardenclub.org.