My friend Songhee and I took Medellín's cable car up high above the city to get to Parque Arví, the largest nature park easily accessible from the city. We enjoyed hiking and exploring the natural scenery for the day. It was also refreshing to spend time in a cooler climate, since Medellín is typically at least 70 degrees and sunny during the day.
I saw many different kinds of ferns as we walked around Parque Arví! I was particularly drawn to a baby fern that I had never seen before. It had a long, bright green stem with small prickers along it. At the top was a curling portion of the green stem that made a curlicue of sorts, and inside the curlicue was a pod-like mass of white. This part of the fern is where the new fronds would sprout from. Baby ferns are commonly referred to as "fiddlehead ferns" for the elegant shape of their curling stems that look like the head of a violin.
When I first saw the baby fern, I thought it was a different plant because it looks quite distinct from the leafy adult ferns I tend to notice all over the place at home in Oregon. When Songhee explained to me that it was actually just a baby fern, I became fascinated, wanting to learn more about the life stages of a fern.
