It is the time of year again, when I am so longing to see flowers in my backyard. Here in the North-East everything is still covered in snow. If you are as deprived as I am, may be this will help a little:

“Forsythia is pure joy. There is not an ounce,
not a glimmer of sadness or even knowledge in forsythia.
Pure, undiluted, untouched joy.”
- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Today I would like to introduce a new topic - flower education.

A lady wrote us the other day, totally panicking, that there were small brown, round-shaped bug nests underneath some of the leaves of her flower bouquet. … Next, I panicked! …. As it turns out though she was referring to the reproductive parts of leather leaf - a type of fern that we regularly use in our flower bouquets.

I have repeatedly received such and similar questions about certain flowers regarding their look, reproduction cycle or vase behavior and I am determined to tackle any and all questions you may have. So, please enter your comments and questions to this posting or send us an email at info@beyondblossoms.com.

Coming back to Fern. Fern is, according to Wikipedia, any one of a group of about 20,000 species of plants classified in the phylum or division Pteridophyta, also known as Filicophyta. The group is also referred to as polypodiopsida when treated as a subdivision of vascular plants.

Ok, too much Latin for me! Essentially fern is a plant with true leaves, which are plant organs specialized for photosynthesis, whereby the plant takes in carbon dioxide and turns it into oxygen. It’s a bit more complex than this, but I will cover photosynthesis some other time. Now, most ferns are not flowering plants, therefore they do not have the typical reproductive parts that a plant needs to reproduce, namely the flower!

Its reproductive parts are spores instead. Those are the small “bug nests” that our customer found underneath her leather leaf. According to Wikipedia, Spores are the units of asexual reproduction as a single spore develops into a new organism… without the need of bees for example;)

I hope you will remember this the next time you receive a bouquet with spore covered fern leaves!