Martin Fone considers the beautiful and ancient fern, once commonly held to have mysterious properties.
Dense stands of Britain’s most common fern, Pteridium aquilinum, bracken, carpet the floor of the woodlands near where I live, marking the progress of the year. Their tightly curled fronds appear in spring, slowly but inexorably unfurling into three large, triangular fronds which wave and susurrate in the summer breeze before dying back in the autumn to leave a…
