Pteridophytes is an informal grouping used to describe vascular plants that disperse spores. Vascular plants have specialized tissues to move water and nutrients, in other words: not moss. Spore dispersal is a form of reproduction where the plant produces neither flowers nor seeds. In other words, the most common spore-producing vascular plants are ferns. (And horsetails.)
Ferns first appeared in the fossil record about 360 million years ago, during the Devonian age — we’re talking pre-dinosaurs here. This era is the first time we start seeing elements familiar in modern plants, like roots or leaves. Polypodiales, the best-known modern group of ferns, didn’t come on the scene until the Cretaceous era, around the same time that flowering plants became a thing.
Pteridophytes have been around for a looong time, outliving the dinosaurs and longer than mankind. Neat of the Victorians to nearly wreck ferns’ legacy — I mean, seriously.
Pteridomania — a compound of pteridophytes and mania — was coined in 1855 by Charles Kingsley, a critic of the “fern mania” he was describing. But he was a bit late to the party. The trend had started back in 1829.
London, 1829.
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward had a collection of plants being strangled by the London smog, it was the height of the Industrial Revolution after all. He built a glass case to protect them in an early iteration of the modern terrarium.
Botanist George Loddiges utilized Ward’s invention to construct the world’s largest hothouse at his nursery situated in East London. One of his (apparently underselling) collections was ferns. Rumor has it he started gossiping that collecting ferns showed intelligence and improved health. His neighbor, Edward Newman, either wittingly or unwittingly supported his claims by publishing A History of British Ferns.
The trend caught on swiftly, it was a well-timed movement. Ferns were more diverse in the wilder, more wet north of Britain — but improved railways and roads had made just recently made this area more accessible, so the hobby reeked of respectable adventure. Closer to home, it was something anyone familiar with local plants could get into as well. Before long, everyone from socialites to scientists to miners were getting involved and Pteridomania was taking Britain by storm.
Fern This, Fern That: 1850s-90s
By the time Charles Kingsley coined his phrase, Wardian cases had spread to fashionable drawing rooms across Britain and Europe — they would outlast the fern craze, reused for the orchid craze that followed. Through the 1800s, somewhere between two and four hundred books on ferns were published. (Around 70–80 novels were published per year around 1800 by comparison.)
The fern craze led to another invention with Henry Riley Bradbury’s “nature printing”. Pieces of real flora were used to produce bookplates in this process, so the resulting illustrations were as accurate as naturally possible.
Being able to print so accurately was good because the fern craze was quickly outstripping local fern supply. There were 70 native British species and their natural hybrids. Monstrosities — intentional crosses of wild species — swiftly gained popularity, as did foreign species. A non-British specimen could fetch about $1270 in today’s economy. Professional fern hunters and researchers alike set out on expeditions ranging through the West Indies, Panama, Honduras, South America, and Asia looking for ferns.
Fallout naturally followed: casualties of both collectors and species were suffered. Several British fern species have only recently been rediscovered after being considered extinct. Eventually, the craze died down to be replaced by orchids, as it had been preceded by tulips. Pteridomania left behind a lasting impression of technical advancements and ferns as a decorating motif.
Tell me about your favorite motif origin story? How about your favorite fern species? (I’m fond of this pretty personally.)
