By Mary Reid Barrow

The rains after a dry spell, as always, give life to the shriveled resurrection fern and like magic, the fern is alive and well once again.

This time it’s just in time for the holidays.

This handsome green fern  lives on tree branches, like our Spanish moss, but it is more fickle than Spanish moss, our top local epiphyte.

In this dry fall, the big ferns withered away on their tree limb perches in First Landing State Park and also, I just happen to be lucky enough to know, on my friend Meg Campbell’s live oak in her North End yard.

Gail Kynett was the one who reminded me and alerted me to the fern’s rejuvenation in the park after a fellow Master Naturalist said he had seen the ferns green and well there just recently.

“A wonderful surprise,” Kynett said.

Meg’s fern is lush green too as you can see from the photo, above that she took. The fern has been growing on the oak in her yard for years and she has watched the same scenario unfolding for an equal number of years. The fern dies back in dry weather until you would swear it was dead and then springs back to life after a rain.

Thus, their name, resurrection fern. The ferns can lose up to 75 percent of their water before they might really die.

Even more remarkable, they look like a ferny vine, but they have no roots at all, neither on the tree nor in the ground. Like Spanish moss, the ferns depend on a tree only for support and get their nutrients from rainwater washing over them.

The fern can be seen growing on the Bald Cypress trail at  First Landing because there is a trail marker D by the tree where it grows. This is a good time to visit when not a lot of greenery is out there to hide it.

 “When the rain comes, as it did last week,” Gail said, “ it springs to life with the vibrant greenery of a newborn spring  day.”

Only now it’s winter cold and just in time for the holidays.