Hi, Currently I’m a Wildlife Biology major at UAF. In 2014 I moved to Alaska from NY after visiting multiple times. I lived multiple places in the state but for the past 5 years have been in Fairbanks. I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors and the different activities that this state has to offer. Besides hiking, fishing, and hunting, I also enjoy gardening and growing house plants in the winter time. I’m very excited to learn more about plants throughout this course, especially those that are local here in the Fairbanks area.
I love making spruce tip tea with the small buds in the spring time. While I don’t necessarily think black spruce are the most beautiful tree, they’re still one of my favorites. I’ve also attached a picture of a plant in the UAF greenhouse this past winter. We took a field trip there during a biology lab and it became one of my favorite places to see.
Welcome Noah, yes, the image from the greenhouse is of the Staghorn fern, Platycerium bifurcatum (Cav.) C.Chr. There is a nice write-up of these from the University of Wisconsin here https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/staghorn-fern-platycerium-bifurcatum/
The spore-producing fronds are really interesting, I have not seen those in the UAF greenhouse, but might have missed them. Here are some nice images from the above website. It is a typical fern in the polypod family (Polypodiaceae), Spores are produced in sporangia in the dark brownish masses (sori) on the underside of the tips of these fertile fronds.