Ferns of San Pedro Valley Park

At 1 PM fern expert Daniel Yansura will provide a slide show covering the basics of fern biology, their evolution, and the characters used to identify the California ferns we will likely see.

Between 2 and 4 PM we will hike a San Pedro Valley park trail to observe our resident ferns. We recommend people bring a 5-10X hand lens, or any magnifying glass if possible for improved viewing of some key characters.

Daniel Yansura recently retired from Genentech, where he was a scientist since the early days of biotechnology;  his specialty was producing human proteins in bacteria.  He has been interested in ferns and lycophytes for more than forty years.  Thirty years ago he started growing ferns from spores in order to generate rare ferns for his own collection, which now exceeds 300 species.  Ferns he has propagated can be seen at the SF Botanical Garden, the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden, the Conservatory of Flowers, the Denver Botanic Gardens, and the Smithsonian Institution Gardens in DC.  He travels all over the world, photographing, studying, and collecting spores from rare ferns, which he shares with local and international fern communities. With his experience in molecular biology, he has used DNA sequencing to determine the species of unidentified ferns.    He is very involved with the San Francisco Fern Society as well as a number of other national and international fern groups.  He has led a two week tour, “The Ferns of California,” for the British Pteridological Society and the Hardy Fern Foundation, and has given a number of presentations to organizations in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Houston.