The Resurrection Fern. One of Earth's beautiful mysteries!

The Resurrection Fern. 

One of nature's most striking and beautiful magic acts. . . I saw the biggest one of these in St. Augustine Florida -

 The Resurrection Fern (Polypodium polypodioides) is an epiphyte that grows attached to branches of forest trees and sometimes upon rocks or dry ground. This fern's long thin rhizomes grow creeping along narrow cracks or in the furrows of the host tree's bark. The Resurrection Fern gets its name because it can survive long periods of drought by curling up and appearing dead. When just a little water is present, the fern will uncurl and reopen, appearing to resurrect. This tiny plant has even been taken on a space shuttle mission to watch it resurrect itself in space!

 Indie Folk artist Sam Beam  also has a song named for this beautiful and strange plant!

In our days we will live
Like our ghosts will live:
Pitching glass at the cornfield crows
And folding clothes

Like stubborn boys across the road
We'll keep everything:
Grandma's gun and the black bear claw
That took her dog

When Sister Lowery says, "Amen"
We won't hear anything:
The ten-car trains will take that word
That fledgling bird

And the fallen house across the way
It'll keep everything:
The baby's breath
Our bravery wasted and our shame

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern

In our days we will say
What our ghosts will say:
We gave the world what it saw fit
And what'd we get?

Like stubborn boys with big green eyes
We'll see everything:
In the timid shade of the autumn leaves
And the buzzard's wing

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Our tender bellies are wound around in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern