With massive fronds creating a luxuriously green canopy in the understory of Australian forests, tree ferns are a familiar sight on many long drives or bushwalks. But how much do you really know about ...

Plant biologists report that a species of tree fern found only in Panama reanimates its own dead leaf fronds, converting them into root structures that feed the mother plant. The fern, Cyathea ...

Once you know how to grow ferns you will appreciate how these versatile plants can add texture, form, and movement to a range of areas in the garden. Whether delicate and feathery, with gently ...

Ordinarily, once a fern's leaf fronds have died, the plant has no further use for them. Such is not the case with the Cyathea rojasiana fern, though – a scientist has discovered that its dead fronds ...

Probably the first pioneer plants to arrive in Hawaii were mosses and ferns. Ferns have been around for over 360 million years. Giant tree fern forests were common for millions of years but they gave ...

For the first time, researchers have characterized the genome arrangement of tree ferns, which sheds new insight into how ferns evolved. Land plants evolved 470 million years ago from algae and have ...

If you want to get a sense of what life was like during the Carboniferous period some 300 million years ago, visit the Kona Cloud Forest above Kailua. The area abounds with ferns that once were ...

The French botanist and biologist Francis Hallé has spent 40 years in pursuit of the strange and beautiful plant specimens of the rainforest. In his Atlas of Poetic Botany, excerpted below, he invites ...

Almost every garden has a shady area that influences the kinds of plants that will grow there. Many people consider these areas a problem, but they actually provide the opportunity to grow an ...