Here there are two ferns you often see living on the trunk of Sabal Palm, the Rabbitfoot Fern (Phlebodium aureum) and the Ponytail Fern (Vittaria lineata). Rabbitfoot Fern is the plant with the large palmate frond. On mature fronds, the bottom of the leaves will have yellowish to brown polkadots. These are the sori, where the tiny spore carriers reside, and are an important character in identifing fern species. The Rabbitfoot fern gets its name from the furry reddish rhyzome that attaches the fern.
The Ponytail Fern looks like green hair. In the close-up, the tiny round spore carriers are arranged in grooves on the underside of the leaf. There appears to be some kind of association of the Ponytail Fern with the Octoblepharum albidum moss since the fern is usually seen growing with it, as it is here. If there is any association at all, it is one way since the moss grows with or without the fern.
Some Sabal Palms retain the leaf stems on the trunk as it grows. These are called jackboots, or just boots. The name comes from their use, by the Spanish Cowboys first inhabiting Florida, in removing their boots from their feet and in scraping cow patties off the soles. The boots provide nooks and cranies where seeds and spores can germinate and grow for plants that need little or no soil such as Bromiliads (Air Plants) and ferns. These plants are not parasites, they are merely using the tree for support. Individual Sabal Palms may keep or shed their boots and it is not known why that is. This tree has shed some and retained others. Whether the trees have boots or not they are all Sabal Palms.
Take a look on the ground in this area and you may see a very tiny yellow flower. This is the ZigZag Bladderwort (Utricularia subulata). It is a carnivorous plant that has tiny bladders on its underground stems with which it captures and digest small creatures, such as nematodes, that live in the soil.
