They are plants that don’t possess flowers. The majority of ferns reproduce by producing spores. Like flowering plants, ferns have stems, roots, and leaves. But unlike flowering plants, they don’t possess seeds or flowers. Instead, they reproduce sexually via tiny spores or occasionally reproduce vegetatively, as demonstrated by the fern that walks.
The fern species were loosely associated with other vascular plants that produce spores commonly referred to as “fern allies.” Recent genetic studies have revealed some surprises regarding the connections between the ferns and their allies. The first is that ferns seem to be closely related to horsetails.
Horsetails, in fact, are now classified as ferns. The second reason is that the plants often referred to as “fern allies,” like club mosses and quillworts aren’t in any way closely related to ferns. General relations among the plants in the plant kingdom are illustrated in the figure below.
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Facts About Ferns
- Ferns have been around for over 360 million years.
- The ferns we see today have been present for between 45 and 50 million years.
- Dinosaurs consumed conifers, ferns, as well as cycads, mosses, and ferns.
- Ferns existed on earth 200 million years prior to the appearance of flowers.
- Ferns can be helpful in preventing or removing pollution as they take heavy metals from the air and the soil.
- Today’s ferns aren’t palatable because of their toxicity. It could be due to this heavy metal that was mentioned previously. It is possible that the ferns are poisonous.
- Some ferns live for a length of over 100 years.
- The height of ferns varies between 2 inches and 30 feet.
- Compressed ferns transformed into fossil fuels and eventually became the base for gas, oil, and oil.
- The spores of ferns reproduce. They don’t have seeds or flowers.
- There are approximately 12,000 different types of ferns found in the world currently. There could be as many as 20000 species.
- In the ferns of North America, there are 441 kinds of indigenous ferns.
- Ferns are vascular and circulate the flow of nutrients and water through their veins.
- There were those who believed that if you consumed ferns, they would be invisible. Some believed that ferns would protect them from witches and goblins.
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