Resurrection Ferns

 

      The massive live oaks that grow in South Carolina's lowcountry are impressive for many reasons: their enormous size, the gray Spanish moss draped from the branches, the leaves that remain green year-round and the small ferns that live in the branches.  Resurrection fern is the common name for Polypodium polypodioides, a creeping fern that attaches to limbs of live oaks.
      The resurrection fern is an epiphyte that grows on top of another plant but does not steal nutrients or water from the host plant.  The host plant serves only as an anchor. 
     The most remarkable feature of the resurrection fern is its ability to dry and shrivel up during dry weather, losing up to 75 percent of its water content. (Typically a plant can only lose about 10 percent of its water content before it dies.) Although it appears dead, the resurrection fern comes back to life when exposed to water again. This plant was once taken aboard the space shuttle so that scientists could observe its "resurrection" process in zero gravity.  The plant's range extends from New York to Florida, and westward to Texas.

The plant's response to dry weather.

 

 

The plant "resurrected".