There’s a common houseplant that in the wild can do what no other plant can.

It’s the staghorn fern.

It’s an epiphyte, meaning it doesn’t need soil but instead grows on a larger host plant and draws its nutrients from water and air.

But that’s not what makes it unique.

Normally a staghorn has two types of fronds. One is green, antler shaped and produces spores. The other is brown, strap-like and sterile, and attaches the fern to the host.

But a scientist noticed that wild staghorns in Australia grew in colonies in which genetically identical plants took different forms.

The ferns at the bottom of the colony had only brown, sterile fronds. At the top, the ferns were only green and fertile.

The brown ferns supported the green ferns. The green ones funneled water down to the brown. And a network of roots connected them together.

It became apparent that this was a social colony of cooperative individuals, like a beehive or an ant mound.

Scientists are trying to figure out if the plants at the bottom are older and have just grown naturally sterile while new green plants keep growing on top of the last generation.

Or if there’s some kind of chemical signal between the plants that makes them behave differently.

Either way, no other plant has shown this kind of communal behavior— a truly unique evolution for ferns.