Pay close attention to the surrounding vegetation and you might notice a lot of ferns in this area of the park. Ferns are a type of plant that doesn’t produce seeds or flowers. Ferns have two different types of life cycles. They have a plant form that produces spores. These spores are tiny reproductive cells covered by a thick shell that can often resist unfavorable conditions. Sori are groups of sporangia which are structures that contain spores and in most ferns are found on the underside of the fern leaves at certain times of the year. With favorable conditions, a spore will land in the soil and form a prothallus (the second type of life cycle), a tiny, heart shaped plant that then engages in a type of sexual reproduction involving sperm and eggs. An embryo is formed from which the tiny fern will then grow. Many ferns also spread through rhizomes, underground stems that allow the ferns to form colonies. Some ferns produce what are called ‘fiddleheads’. These are spiral-shaped, rolled up parts of the plant that expand and develop into leaves (called fronds) as the plant emerges from the ground.