Our fern story starts in the mid-1970s, when Charlsie Urquhart, a longtime counselor at Clear Lake High School in Houston, gave my grandmother, Irene Cauley, a “pup” cut from her maturing ...

Staghorn ferns (Platycerium species) are epiphytes, plants that hold on to tree trunks or branches. They have two kinds of fronds: flat, roundish sterile ones that turn brown and papery as they ...

A question for Dan Gill: A dear friend gave me a staghorn fern four or five years ago, and it now seems to have fallen on hard times.The round ball out of which the antlers grow seems to be ...

I didn’t want the staghorn fern, but the thought of owning one made my husband, Tom, so happy. On the way to our friend’s house to pick it up, he bounced in the passenger seat like a child ...

QUESTION: A few days ago I found a nest of ants in my staghorn fern. Would a periodic dusting with boric acid be harmful to the plant? ANSWER: Gardeners should keep boric acid treatments away from … ...

Even if staghorn ferns aren’t as social as bees, “it was very cool to see that there might be similar sorts of complex social behaviors happening in plants,” he said.

Question: If a piece of staghorn fern falls from the main plant, can it be saved? I have seen them planted in mulch and soil. What is best? Answer: Sometimes staghorn ferns begin to fall apart with… ...