By Susan Milius
A textbook truism about the poor ferns being held back by a weak link in their life cycle may not be so true after all.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/7261.jpg?resize=300%2C147&ssl=1)
The upright bursts of fronds that we think of as ferns produce unferny offspring in the form of bits of free-living, filmy, green tissue. In a pattern of alternating generations, these scraps of green create gametes that give rise to new fronds.