My sister, who lives in Toronto, came to visit us last month. Taking a tour of our backyard, she exclaimed over the multitude of ferns framing our property, their gorgeous green fronds swaying romantically in the breeze. In Vermont we are truly blessed with a fanfare of ferns. Ferns are an ancient family of plants and have been thriving for millions of years. The number of fern species in existence is estimated at between 9,000 and 15,000, for new species are still being discovered in unexplored tropical areas and many groups are poorly studied.
Ferns thrive in a wide range of habitats around the globe.
In Costa Rica alone there are more than 900 species. They are older than land animals and far older than the dinosaurs, and were thriving on Earth for 200 million years before flowering plants evolved. Their life cycle, dependent upon spores for dispersal, long preceded the seed-plant life cycle. Ferns love moist environments and thrive under Vermont's sheltering forest canopies and along creeks and streams. The young leaves normally unroll from a tight fiddlehead, or crosier.