

Platycerium bifurcatum – Staghorn Fern
Platycerium bifurcatum is an unusual and beautiful hanging plant. In its native tropical rainforests, Platycerium bifurcatum often sits 30 m above the ground in the branch forks of jungle trees, like a bird’s nest. There it lives as an epiphyte, which means that it feeds on dead plant parts.
This fern is infested with scale insects. You can see brown raised dots on the leaves. Scale insects have a kind of shell that makes them resistant to sprayed insecticides and therefore particularly troublesome.
That's why I scrape the insects off with a cotton bud soaked in alcohol and thus free the fern leaves from the annoying insects.
The fern already looks fresh and healthy again. I water it regularly so that the soil never dries out completely and place it in a bright spot without direct sunlight and with high humidity.