Bringing plant life cycles to life through music

When Professor David Baum teaches General Botany (Botany 130) each semester, students have the opportunity to gain extra credit.

The students -- working singly or in small groups -- can earn credit by setting a plant life cycle to music.

The motivation may be educational -- writing a song forces students to organize their understanding into a linear form -- but the outcome is entertaining.

Each semester there is battle of the songs where three finalists compete to win over the class and earn bragging-rights and a small prize.

This year the winning artist, with a rap number I'm a Fern in the World, was Frederick Jones-Rosa.  

The song is available here.

Jones-Rosa's prize was a Botany T-shirt and a packet of miracle fruit tablets.

Previous years have seen botanical takes on such artists as Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, and REM.

Lyrics to I'm a Fern in the World:
By Frederick Jones-Rosa

They say I’m a monilophyte but you can call me a fern

My life’s been a long one, with many twists and turns

Sometimes it’s hard to discern what stage I’m in

Let me welcome you to my world, let the story begin

I started out as a spore, on the bottom of a leaf

Grew up in a sporophyte, my release was a relief

I had many brothers and sisters, and some of them didn’t make it

But sometimes life is hard, and the goal is just to stay fit

I was a small little guy, all alone and homeless

But I soon started to grow I guess you could say mitosis

And pretty soon fertilization became my focus

But I knew finding a mate for me was pretty much hopeless

I’m a fern in the world, just trying to grow

Fertilization and cell division is all that I know

I just want to survive and spread my spores

And know I’m not a peach but my life is hard core

So I fertilized myself just not to remain childless

I really didn’t care that all my kids would be homozygous

It really wasn’t hard there was no pandemonium

I just put sperm from my antheridia into my archegonium

So now I was a zygote, yeah from 1N to two

The best years of my life, and upwards I grew

The increase in my size was all in my genetics

And it also didn’t hurt that I was photosynthetic

I grew and I grew and it seemed like overnight

I reached my final stage and became a sporophyte

So now I’m making sporangium all on my own

And just hoping my little spores, will all find a home