FERNS with Fay-Wei Li

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Alie Ward (0:45)

Hey, it's your old roommate who always found the best furniture on the side of the road, Alie Ward. Hey, did you know that these are Smologies? These are shorter, G-rated episodes for everyone. We made them out of our Ologies classics because we wanted everyone to be able to listen to them, even teachers in a classroom. So here we go. Ferns. Ferns, you're asking? Ferns, I'm telling you. What is up with these plants and why are they special? You're about to find out and you will never walk past a fern the same. Man, they're weird plants, weird in the best way possible. Okay, let's get into it. Let's unfurl into the episode. Did you know that you love ferns?

Not yet? Sit tight. You're about to. I'm going to tell you one person who loves ferns, it's this guest. In fact, I first saw this Ologist in this quick video about ferns, and they were wearing a shirt that said, I heart ferns, but the heart was a fern gametophyte.

You're going to find out everything about that later. They said that ferns were fantastic. This is in the first five seconds of the video and I was like, they're on.

They wrote the 2025 book Ferns, Lessons in Survival from the Earth's Most Adaptable Plants. They're an associate professor at Cornell's Boyce Thompson Institute, and we'll talk about their stories and their deep love of ferns in a moment. But first, let's jump into pteridology.

The pter comes from the Greek word for a wing or a feather, so pterodactyl or helicopter, helico, which means spiral, and pter, which means wing. So if you didn't know, yeah, the pter in helicopter is its own word in there. It's weird. But ferns, they look feathery, so people who study them are officially on record as pteridologists. And so let's illuminate the shadowy world of ferns to hear about their long evolution. What ferns not to have in your house? Haploid, diploid, spore packets, climbing ferns. Do they have roots? And why your fern is dead? With the absolutely charming, enthusiastic scholar, professor, researcher, fern advocate, and terriologist, Dr. Fay-Wei Li.

Fay-Wei Li (3:13)

Fay-Wei Li, EHIM.

Alie Ward (3:14)

Where are you right now?

Fay-Wei Li (3:16)

I'm right now in North Carolina.

Alie Ward (3:18)

Does North Carolina have good ferns? I feel like I don't even know if North Carolina has ferns.

Fay-Wei Li (3:23)

Yeah, I mean, North America in general is not a great place to find ferns. So to put it into perspective, I grew up in Taiwan. There's just so many fern diversity in Taiwan. Taiwan has 800 different species. Taiwan is like a third of the third size of New York state. The whole North America has only 400 species. So this tiny island has double the fern diversity compared to USA.

And so the most exciting place in North America to find ferns is in the desert.

Alie Ward (3:55)

What? No.

Fay-Wei Li (3:57)

Yeah. Yeah. Arizona, for example, has one of the highest fern diversity.

Alie Ward (4:02)

I thought ferns needed a lot of darkness and water. And those are like two things Arizona does not have.

Fay-Wei Li (4:09)

Well, so they have what we call a Kellenvoit fern. They are desert ferns. They adapted to this really dry environment and they really took advantage of it and took care of it. They diversify. So much diversity there.

Alie Ward (4:23)

What do they look like?

Fay-Wei Li (4:25)

Usually they look really crispy. They can lose their water up to 90% and they can still come back alive. So if you, for example, have a hike in the desert in Arizona, Texas, whatever, you see some crispy ferns, put them in a ziplock bag or pour some water over it.

They may come back. Just green it up.

Alie Ward (4:45)