Teri Cooperrider, age 12, of Bay Village, Ohio,‑ for the question:

Why do ferns have spores?

The oak tree has acorns which grow into morn oak trees. The apple tree has blossoms which develop into apples bearing seeds for more apple trees. Most common plants hang' on life to new generations by growing flowers and seeds. But the graceful fern has neither flowers nor seeds. Instead, the new generation springs from the spores of the parent plant,

When a true seed finds the right conditions, it grows into a plant like its parents, the fern spore must go through two stages before it can become a fern and. the job of growing up is very complicated.

The spores develop on the underside of a green feathery fern frond. They look like small brown blisters. Each blister is a group of tiny., tiny spore cases clustered about a small horseshoe. When the spores are ripe, the little horseshoe jerks open like a spring, scattering the teeming spores into the air.

In a strong breeze, the dark powdery spores can be wafted high and far. Sooner or later they settle somewhere on the earth. Some fall far out in the ocean, some an the dry sunny deserts, some fall high on cold rocky mountains and some travel far enough to land on the frozen tundra of the Arctic. All these unlucky spores came to nothing, for a fern must have warm air, moist earth and shade before it can even start t o grow.

Lets follow what happens to one lucky little spore which succeeds when countless millions of its brothers fail. It lands on the moist earth under a shady tree and begins at once to grow into a small body called a gametophyte. This gametophyte looks like a flat, heart shaped green leaf a quarter inch long. It puts down roots for it must nourish itself for a very important job. On its underside there are small bumps which carry the precious sperm cells and the egg cells.

Before a new fern can grow, an egg cell must be fertilized by a sperm toll. The little gametophyte waits for a dewy morning or a rainy day. Then it is covered with a film of water and the sperm cells use their hair like tails to swim towards the egg cells. When two cells join we have a true seed, a fertilized egg cell.

This happy little cell begins to grow into a copy of its parent fern, It grows a long root‑stock just under the surface of the soil. When spring comes, fern fronds begin to spring up from the root‑stock. At first they look like little fuzzy fists. The tops remain coiled as they grow taller and at this stage some of them are called fiddleheads because they look like the graceful neck of a violin. Many growing fern fronds are covered with fuzz which the hummingbirds steal to line their nests.

The spores and early life of a fern seem very complex when compared with a simple seed plant, However, the ferns were hero long, long before the flowering plants. They have been using their method to hand on life successfully for more than 200 million years.