A FERN is a non-flowering plant, which is any one of a group of about 12,000 species of plants in the family, pteridophyta.
Apart from not having flowers, they also do not have seeds, but reproduce by spores, which develop into seedlings without needing to combine sexually with any other element of the plant. Scientists believe ferns are among the oldest of plants.
They first appeared, it is said, in the fossil record some 360 million years ago.
They are older than land animals, and far older than the dinosaurs, which lived between 230 million and  65 million years ago.
Ferns were thriving on Earth for 200 million years before the flowering plants evolved.
But many of the current families and species, scientists say, did not appear until roughly 145 million years ago, after flowering plants came to dominate many environments.
There are thousands of different species of ferns, some growing as small as an inch, and being valued as indoor houseplants, and other varieties as big as a trees… up to 50-60 feet in height!
They are distributed all across the globe, and about the only place where they are not found is in the desert regions, and at the North and South Poles.
Garden ferns are hardy plants. As landscape plants, they make for exciting contrast in foliage, form and colour.
They are also attractive in the shady sections of the garden, and look particularly beautiful when they are used as edging along a stand of trees, or even among rocks.
The dried form of ferns  is also used in art, as stencils or directly inked for use in a design.
In the Victorian era in the then United Kingdom (the years 1837  to 1901), ‘Pteridomania’ was a  term given a craze  of fern collecting by many,  and the use of fern motifs in decorative art, including pottery, glass, metals, textiles, wood, printed paper, and sculpture,  with ferns appearing on everything, from christening presents to gravestones and memorials.
Local gardeners value this plant, because it is tough, easy to grow, and because of the abundance of varieties that can serve as decorative pieces.