Best of Natural History Radio   /     Natural Histories : Fern

Description

For a plant that we generally associate with shady, damp places, a plant that has no flowers or scent, the Fern has drawn us into her fronds and driven an obsession that is quite like any other. Pteridomania or Fern Madness swept through Victorian Britain in part thanks to the availability of plate glass from which manufacturers could build glass cases for growing ferns. The trade in ferns all but wiped out some species from parts of the UK and fern hawkers sold specimens on street corners in London. Brett Westwood and Verity Sharp trace our relationship with the fern on a journey from a slide of spores in Durham, to the art of Nature Printing via a garden fernery and discover that the fern is still weaving its magic spell over us.

Subtitle
A plant that has no flowers or scent, the Fern has drawn us into her fronds.
Duration
1652
Publishing date
2019-11-15 17:52
Link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07tz9p8
Contributors
  BBC Radio 4
author  
Enclosures
http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download/proto/http/vpid/p07tz87r.mp3
audio/mpeg