{"id":157488,"date":"2023-07-20T14:03:35","date_gmt":"2023-07-20T12:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=157488"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:53","slug":"the-roof-of-the-car-park-is-home-to-a-rare-fern-with-tongue-shaped-fronds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/07\/20\/the-roof-of-the-car-park-is-home-to-a-rare-fern-with-tongue-shaped-fronds\/","title":{"rendered":"The roof of the car park is home to a rare fern with tongue-shaped fronds"},"content":{"rendered":"

What may seem like a weed at first is actually the rare hart’s-tongue fern. The car-park roof appears to be the ideal habitat for this rather discerning plant.<\/p>\n

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The tongue fern seed has landed in exactly the right place on campus. This fern is not big, so ecologist Garry Bakker points it out.<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRonald van den Heerik<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

A tiny seed \u2013 or \u2018spore\u2019, in the case of ferns \u2013 is picked up by a gust of wind and blown across campus. Its chances of surviving the journey in the concrete landscape are very slim. But this one lands in just the right place: the shady crevice of a roof above one of the entrances to the car park. Rainwater flows down the slanted roof into the crevices, allowing the spore to grow into a hart\u2019s-tongue fern.<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t