Fern FEVER

The burgeoning middle classes, scientific advances and plant discoveries of the 19th century resulted in an unprecedented interest in the natural world. ‘Fern fever’, or pteridomania as it became known, gripped the country, with these beautiful but often understated plants becoming the inspiration for Victorian design, ranging from textiles, pottery and glass to stone and metalwork. They also became a must-have for plant collectors, and the advent of the railways combined with a plethora of articles and books about ferns spurred thousands of amateur botanists to head off on fern forays into remote countryside, where they’d risk life and limb climbing rocky