April 23, 2025 • 13 mins
It’s the mid-1800s and pteridomania – or fern frenzy – is the new big craze.
Across the UK, plant enthusiasts are heading into the countryside to pick all the prized specimens they can find.
And fern fans far and wide are avidly creating collections and displays of the leafy green plants to show off.
Uncover the truth about this Victorian phenomenon and how it influenced our love of house plants.
But who were the pteridomaniacs? What did ferns secretly symbolise about young women and sex? And how can we learn from the conservation consequences of the craze?
Join Presenter and Ranger Rosie Holdsworth and Curator Clara Woolford to unfurl the curious story of Victorian fern fever.
[Ad] Wild Tales is sponsored by Cotswold Outdoor, your outside retailer and epic guides to adventure.
Quick breathers, calming walks or heart-pounding hikes. We feel better when we get out more.
Find quality kit and 50 years of outdoor wisdom. Plus, supporters save 15% in-store and online. Feel in your element, in the elements, at Cotswold Outdoor.
https://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/
And fern fans far and wide are avidly creating collections and displays of the leafy green plants to show off.
Uncover the truth about this Victorian phenomenon and how it influenced our love of house plants.
But who were the pteridomaniacs? What did ferns secretly symbolise about young women and sex? And how can we learn from the conservation consequences of the craze?
Join Presenter and Ranger Rosie Holdsworth and Curator Clara Woolford to unfurl the curious story of Victorian fern fever.
[Ad] Wild Tales is sponsored by Cotswold Outdoor, your outside retailer and epic guides to adventure.
Quick breathers, calming walks or heart-pounding hikes. We feel better when we get out more.
Find quality kit and 50 years of outdoor wisdom. Plus, supporters save 15% in-store and online. Feel in your element, in the elements, at Cotswold Outdoor.
https://www.cotswoldoutdoor.com/
Discover more:
Visit Cragside in Northumberland for a taste of fern fever. See the fernery, rockery and glass houses designed by Lady Armstrong in the 1800s, now cared for by the National Trust.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/north-east/cragside
Visit Cragside in Northumberland for a taste of fern fever. See the fernery, rockery and glass houses designed by Lady Armstrong in the 1800s, now cared for by the National Trust.
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/north-east/cragside
Production:
Host: Rosie Holdsworth
Producer: Michelle Douglass
Sound Editor: Jesus Gomez
Follow Wild Tales nature podcast on your favourite podcast app or on Instagram @wildtalesnt. If you'd like to get in touch with feedback, or have a story idea you’d love to hear, contact us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk
Host: Rosie Holdsworth
Producer: Michelle Douglass
Sound Editor: Jesus Gomez
Follow Wild Tales nature podcast on your favourite podcast app or on Instagram @wildtalesnt. If you'd like to get in touch with feedback, or have a story idea you’d love to hear, contact us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
CLARA WOOLFORD (00:34):
Ferns were considered to be safe because
they were essentially asexual.So if your daughter or your wife
was very into ferns, that wasconsidered far less stimulating
than if she was into somethinglike orchids that Victorians
felt looked particularlysensual.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (00:53):
Today we're travelling back to an age of
discovery. It's the mid-1800sand Britain has succumbed to a
mania for collecting leafy greennon-flowering plants, ferns. And
this new nature craze is aboutto be taken to the extreme. I'm
Ranger Rosie Holdsworth. Welcometo Wild Tales, Pterodomania,
(01:14):
when Fern Frenzy swept the UK.
Are you a proud houseplantparent? I love putting my plants
in the shower to water them andpretend that I live in a
rainforest. I've got a lot ofenthusiasm for all my plant
babies, but I do get out of mydepth caring for them.
(01:36):
Houseplants are a huge trendamongst millennials and gen z.
We largely owe our moderngreen-fingered habits to the
Victorians' total obsession withbotany. And pterodomania, or
Fern Frenzy, was one of thebiggest crazes of all time. So
who were the pterodomaniacs? Whywas Fern Frenzy really a lot
(01:57):
about sex? And what can we learnabout the conservation
consequences when the craze wenttoo far?
CLARA WOOLFORD (02:05):
Pterodomaniacs or Fern hunters, they would
really go to extremes to collectthe best specimens and get quite
competitive about it.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (02:15):
This is Clara Walford, curator at Cragside in
Northumberland.
CLARA WOOLFORD (02:20):
One of the people that we know a lot about
is a gentleman called CharlesDrury. He writes about how on
one expedition in Devonshire,and Devonshire was the place to
go fern hunting
he tries to dislodge what hecalls a very desirable heart's
tongue fern that's growing outthe side of a bridge that's
(02:44):
spanning a really fast flowingstream.
Because he can't get to it hedecides to lean over the side
with a trowel, which he's lashedto a stick and then sort of
pokes the fern out and catchesit in an open umbrella that he
suspended underneath the arch ofthe bridge with a piece of
string. And then has to wadeinto the river to retrieve this
(03:09):
fern.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (03:11):
So how exactly did the fern craze start?
CLARA WOOLFORD (03:17):
Pteridomania, which is really hard to say and
it's even harder to spellbecause it has a silent P at the
start, it basically means fernmadness. And it was coined in
1855 by a writer and a botanistcalled Charles Kingsley. He is
most well known for his fairytale, The Water Babies, but it
(03:38):
really takes over the whole ofVictorian society in a way that
is quite unbelievable.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (03:45):
For the Victorians, collecting and
categorising things was anobsession and way of life. This
was applied to lots of thingsand especially natural history.
CLARA WOOLFORD (03:56):
It's obviously the period of Charles Darwin.
This is the era of taxonomy andworking out family trees between
different species. It's a periodwhere they are discovering and
exploring the world.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (04:12):
Ferns themselves are an ancient plant
recognisable by their featheryleaves or fronds. The plant life
first appeared around 400million years ago before the
time of the dinosaurs.
Around 60 varieties grow in theUK. Bracken is the most common
fern. And we have lots of otherspecies with fun names like
(04:35):
brittle bladder, scaly male andmaidenhair. Maidenhair, by the
way, is not named after the hairon your head.
And in the 19th Century, aculmination of social conditions
means it's suddenly easy forhobbies like fern hunting to go
viral.
CLARA WOOLFORD (04:54):
It goes from that kind of intellectual elite
down to people in their ownhomes collecting. And I think
it's also a sign of that periodthat there's mass media, there's
journals for just about everyhobby and interest. And that
actually is probably quitesimilar to us today with, you
know, things like Pinterest andTikTok, and you can find your
(05:15):
community.
And thanks to things like therailway, so this brilliant new
technology, the Britishcountryside is suddenly far more
accessible to ordinary people.There was all sorts of fern
hunting paraphernalia that wasmarketed as well.
So you could buy specialisttrowels and little specimen pots
to put your ferns in because youhad to try and keep them alive
(05:38):
on the journey home. Albums ofspecimens, special cases that
they'd make, they'd make tinymuseums in their homes. It's
really encouraged and a realkind of fashionable thing to be
doing.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (05:50):
So who were these fashionable
pterodomaniacs?
CLARA WOOLFORD (05:53):
The Victorian fern craze gets very associated
with young women. CharlesKingsley, who coins the term,
how he describes it is slightlypatronising. So he says, Your
daughters perhaps have beenseized with the prevailing
pteridomania, wrangling overunpronounceable names of species
(06:13):
which seem different in everynew fern book that they buy.
And yet you cannot deny thatthey find enjoyment in it and
are more active, more cheerful,more self-forgetful over it than
they would have been overnovels, gossip, crochet and
Berlin wool.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (06:28):
Victorian society also wanted to associate
young women with ferns foranother reason. Ferns are
asexual and so deemedappropriate plants for the
sensitive female mind.
CLARA WOOLFORD (06:41):
It's considered a more wholesome activity
because ferns don't flower. Itwasn't really understood how
ferns reproduced and around thisperiod is when they start to
understand the idea of spores.
But essentially, unlike aflowering plant that has sexual
organs, that idea that bees haveto come and pollinate a
(07:01):
flowering plant, the Victorianswho saw sex everywhere, that had
connotations that they didn'twant to associate with young
ladies.
Whereas ferns were considered tobe safe in that regard because
they were essentially asexual.So if your daughter or your wife
was very into ferns, that wasconsidered far less stimulating
than if she was into somethinglike orchids. That Victorians
(07:25):
felt looked particularlysensual.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (07:29):
The Victorians might have wanted to stop young
women botanists getting sex intotheir heads, but young women had
something else in mind.
CLARA WOOLFORD (07:42):
Fern hunting was something that could be done as
a group of men and women, whichwas quite unusual for the
Victorian period. This isbecause young women very into
ferns, if they wanted to go outinto the British countryside, it
would be highly inappropriatefor them to do that
unchaperoned. So it's also avery physical activity. So it
(08:03):
might not be something wherethey're taking along a more
elderly female relative.
So they're being accompanied byyoung men. But it was well
acknowledged that these groupswere often being used for more
illicit assignations. Punchmagazine was a really popular
satirical magazine, they printin 1869 an article that suggests
(08:28):
that botanising, which is theterm they use, which I love, is
a good way of exploring lessfrequented spots with what they
refer to as a'bloomingcompanion'.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (08:40):
It's not just young women who get in on fern
frenzy. It's everywhere. At itspeak in the mid-1800s, fern
parties are so common they'recompeting for the same patches
in the British countryside.
As with many of our obsessions,people take the fern craze to
the extreme, and there are veryreal consequences. There are
(09:03):
stories from the era of unluckyfern collectors whose bodies are
discovered at the bottom ofcliffs after going too far to
reach the best ferns.
And then of course, there arethe serious conservation
consequences to the fernsthemselves. Ferns play an
important role in the ecosystem.Growing where very little else
can, they provide shelter andshade for other species and
(09:26):
their structure protects againstsoil erosion. So stripping them
en masse from their habitats isa big environmental problem.
CLARA WOOLFORD (09:35):
So Edward Lowe, who was a very famous fern
breeder in the 1890s, despairsof fern gangs. So there are
literally gangs of raiders goingout into the English countryside
and stealing ferns, collectingferns en masse to sell them on.
They were also stealing themfrom private estates. And others
(09:55):
were noting that ferns in Kentand Devon were becoming nearly
extinct. Large areas of theBritish countryside are being
stripped of ferns and they'renot being able to reproduce fast
enough.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (10:07):
And there was the complicated issue of
colonial plant hunters takingferns from other countries. This
was often done without anyconsideration for conservation
or permission from localcommunities.
CLARA WOOLFORD (10:19):
So people that are being tasked to bring these
ferns back for nurseries tosell, they're just stripping out
ferns and other plants fromecosystems without any
consideration about what thatimpact might be. So there's not
a thought given to what happensif you take away all of the
breeding plants from an area inone go.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (10:42):
By the end of the 19th century, fern frenzy
has got everywhere. Fern designsand patterns appear on
everything from curtains togarden benches to crockery. And
you might not have even noticedthe ferns on one of the nation's
favourite treats.
CLARA WOOLFORD (10:57):
That curly, swirly pattern on a custard
cream, that's actually fernfronds so every time you're
eating a custard cream you'repart of that fern mania cult.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (11:10):
Fern frenzy's legacy is still found in how we
behave today. The Victorian'sinfluence can be seen in our
love of house plants andgardening. And like the
pterodomaniacs lots of us getreally into our hobbies and
sharing and showing off ourinterests. But these days we
understand a lot more aboutconservation. Thankfully, many
(11:31):
common fern species are still afamiliar sight in the British
countryside.
And we now know that the bestway to enjoy ferns is to head
out into the places where theycan grow undisturbed in their
ancient green glory.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Wild Tales. If you
want to explore the fern frenzyfor yourself, Cragside in
(11:53):
Northumberland is home to one ofthe UK's best collections. You
can explore rockeries, grottoesand glasshouses in the expansive
gardens. For more from WildTales, follow us on your
favourite podcast app and findus on Instagram @wildtalesnt.
Why not share your own taleswith the hashtag
(12:13):
wildtaleswednesdays? See younext time.
Wild Tales is sponsored byCotswold Outdoor, your outside
retailer and epic guides toadventure. Quick breathers,
(12:37):
calming walks or heart-poundinghikes. We feel better when we
get out more.
Find quality kit and 50 years ofoutdoor wisdom. Plus, National
Trust supporters get 15% offwalking kit in-store and online.
Feel in your element, in theelements at Cotswold Outdoor.
Ferns were considered to be safe because
they were essentially asexual.So if your daughter or your wife
was very into ferns, that wasconsidered far less stimulating
than if she was into somethinglike orchids that Victorians
felt looked particularlysensual.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (00:53):
Today we're travelling back to an age of
discovery. It's the mid-1800sand Britain has succumbed to a
mania for collecting leafy greennon-flowering plants, ferns. And
this new nature craze is aboutto be taken to the extreme. I'm
Ranger Rosie Holdsworth. Welcometo Wild Tales, Pterodomania,
(01:14):
when Fern Frenzy swept the UK.
Are you a proud houseplantparent? I love putting my plants
in the shower to water them andpretend that I live in a
rainforest. I've got a lot ofenthusiasm for all my plant
babies, but I do get out of mydepth caring for them.
(01:36):
Houseplants are a huge trendamongst millennials and gen z.
We largely owe our moderngreen-fingered habits to the
Victorians' total obsession withbotany. And pterodomania, or
Fern Frenzy, was one of thebiggest crazes of all time. So
who were the pterodomaniacs? Whywas Fern Frenzy really a lot
(01:57):
about sex? And what can we learnabout the conservation
consequences when the craze wenttoo far?
CLARA WOOLFORD (02:05):
Pterodomaniacs or Fern hunters, they would
really go to extremes to collectthe best specimens and get quite
competitive about it.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (02:15):
This is Clara Walford, curator at Cragside in
Northumberland.
CLARA WOOLFORD (02:20):
One of the people that we know a lot about
is a gentleman called CharlesDrury. He writes about how on
one expedition in Devonshire,and Devonshire was the place to
go fern hunting
he tries to dislodge what hecalls a very desirable heart's
tongue fern that's growing outthe side of a bridge that's
(02:44):
spanning a really fast flowingstream.
Because he can't get to it hedecides to lean over the side
with a trowel, which he's lashedto a stick and then sort of
pokes the fern out and catchesit in an open umbrella that he
suspended underneath the arch ofthe bridge with a piece of
string. And then has to wadeinto the river to retrieve this
(03:09):
fern.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (03:11):
So how exactly did the fern craze start?
CLARA WOOLFORD (03:17):
Pteridomania, which is really hard to say and
it's even harder to spellbecause it has a silent P at the
start, it basically means fernmadness. And it was coined in
1855 by a writer and a botanistcalled Charles Kingsley. He is
most well known for his fairytale, The Water Babies, but it
(03:38):
really takes over the whole ofVictorian society in a way that
is quite unbelievable.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (03:45):
For the Victorians, collecting and
categorising things was anobsession and way of life. This
was applied to lots of thingsand especially natural history.
CLARA WOOLFORD (03:56):
It's obviously the period of Charles Darwin.
This is the era of taxonomy andworking out family trees between
different species. It's a periodwhere they are discovering and
exploring the world.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (04:12):
Ferns themselves are an ancient plant
recognisable by their featheryleaves or fronds. The plant life
first appeared around 400million years ago before the
time of the dinosaurs.
Around 60 varieties grow in theUK. Bracken is the most common
fern. And we have lots of otherspecies with fun names like
(04:35):
brittle bladder, scaly male andmaidenhair. Maidenhair, by the
way, is not named after the hairon your head.
And in the 19th Century, aculmination of social conditions
means it's suddenly easy forhobbies like fern hunting to go
viral.
CLARA WOOLFORD (04:54):
It goes from that kind of intellectual elite
down to people in their ownhomes collecting. And I think
it's also a sign of that periodthat there's mass media, there's
journals for just about everyhobby and interest. And that
actually is probably quitesimilar to us today with, you
know, things like Pinterest andTikTok, and you can find your
(05:15):
community.
And thanks to things like therailway, so this brilliant new
technology, the Britishcountryside is suddenly far more
accessible to ordinary people.There was all sorts of fern
hunting paraphernalia that wasmarketed as well.
So you could buy specialisttrowels and little specimen pots
to put your ferns in because youhad to try and keep them alive
(05:38):
on the journey home. Albums ofspecimens, special cases that
they'd make, they'd make tinymuseums in their homes. It's
really encouraged and a realkind of fashionable thing to be
doing.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (05:50):
So who were these fashionable
pterodomaniacs?
CLARA WOOLFORD (05:53):
The Victorian fern craze gets very associated
with young women. CharlesKingsley, who coins the term,
how he describes it is slightlypatronising. So he says, Your
daughters perhaps have beenseized with the prevailing
pteridomania, wrangling overunpronounceable names of species
(06:13):
which seem different in everynew fern book that they buy.
And yet you cannot deny thatthey find enjoyment in it and
are more active, more cheerful,more self-forgetful over it than
they would have been overnovels, gossip, crochet and
Berlin wool.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (06:28):
Victorian society also wanted to associate
young women with ferns foranother reason. Ferns are
asexual and so deemedappropriate plants for the
sensitive female mind.
CLARA WOOLFORD (06:41):
It's considered a more wholesome activity
because ferns don't flower. Itwasn't really understood how
ferns reproduced and around thisperiod is when they start to
understand the idea of spores.
But essentially, unlike aflowering plant that has sexual
organs, that idea that bees haveto come and pollinate a
(07:01):
flowering plant, the Victorianswho saw sex everywhere, that had
connotations that they didn'twant to associate with young
ladies.
Whereas ferns were considered tobe safe in that regard because
they were essentially asexual.So if your daughter or your wife
was very into ferns, that wasconsidered far less stimulating
than if she was into somethinglike orchids. That Victorians
(07:25):
felt looked particularlysensual.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (07:29):
The Victorians might have wanted to stop young
women botanists getting sex intotheir heads, but young women had
something else in mind.
CLARA WOOLFORD (07:42):
Fern hunting was something that could be done as
a group of men and women, whichwas quite unusual for the
Victorian period. This isbecause young women very into
ferns, if they wanted to go outinto the British countryside, it
would be highly inappropriatefor them to do that
unchaperoned. So it's also avery physical activity. So it
(08:03):
might not be something wherethey're taking along a more
elderly female relative.
So they're being accompanied byyoung men. But it was well
acknowledged that these groupswere often being used for more
illicit assignations. Punchmagazine was a really popular
satirical magazine, they printin 1869 an article that suggests
(08:28):
that botanising, which is theterm they use, which I love, is
a good way of exploring lessfrequented spots with what they
refer to as a'bloomingcompanion'.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (08:40):
It's not just young women who get in on fern
frenzy. It's everywhere. At itspeak in the mid-1800s, fern
parties are so common they'recompeting for the same patches
in the British countryside.
As with many of our obsessions,people take the fern craze to
the extreme, and there are veryreal consequences. There are
(09:03):
stories from the era of unluckyfern collectors whose bodies are
discovered at the bottom ofcliffs after going too far to
reach the best ferns.
And then of course, there arethe serious conservation
consequences to the fernsthemselves. Ferns play an
important role in the ecosystem.Growing where very little else
can, they provide shelter andshade for other species and
(09:26):
their structure protects againstsoil erosion. So stripping them
en masse from their habitats isa big environmental problem.
CLARA WOOLFORD (09:35):
So Edward Lowe, who was a very famous fern
breeder in the 1890s, despairsof fern gangs. So there are
literally gangs of raiders goingout into the English countryside
and stealing ferns, collectingferns en masse to sell them on.
They were also stealing themfrom private estates. And others
(09:55):
were noting that ferns in Kentand Devon were becoming nearly
extinct. Large areas of theBritish countryside are being
stripped of ferns and they'renot being able to reproduce fast
enough.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (10:07):
And there was the complicated issue of
colonial plant hunters takingferns from other countries. This
was often done without anyconsideration for conservation
or permission from localcommunities.
CLARA WOOLFORD (10:19):
So people that are being tasked to bring these
ferns back for nurseries tosell, they're just stripping out
ferns and other plants fromecosystems without any
consideration about what thatimpact might be. So there's not
a thought given to what happensif you take away all of the
breeding plants from an area inone go.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (10:42):
By the end of the 19th century, fern frenzy
has got everywhere. Fern designsand patterns appear on
everything from curtains togarden benches to crockery. And
you might not have even noticedthe ferns on one of the nation's
favourite treats.
CLARA WOOLFORD (10:57):
That curly, swirly pattern on a custard
cream, that's actually fernfronds so every time you're
eating a custard cream you'repart of that fern mania cult.
ROSIE HOLDSWORTH (11:10):
Fern frenzy's legacy is still found in how we
behave today. The Victorian'sinfluence can be seen in our
love of house plants andgardening. And like the
pterodomaniacs lots of us getreally into our hobbies and
sharing and showing off ourinterests. But these days we
understand a lot more aboutconservation. Thankfully, many
(11:31):
common fern species are still afamiliar sight in the British
countryside.
And we now know that the bestway to enjoy ferns is to head
out into the places where theycan grow undisturbed in their
ancient green glory.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode of Wild Tales. If you
want to explore the fern frenzyfor yourself, Cragside in
(11:53):
Northumberland is home to one ofthe UK's best collections. You
can explore rockeries, grottoesand glasshouses in the expansive
gardens. For more from WildTales, follow us on your
favourite podcast app and findus on Instagram @wildtalesnt.
Why not share your own taleswith the hashtag
(12:13):
wildtaleswednesdays? See younext time.
Wild Tales is sponsored byCotswold Outdoor, your outside
retailer and epic guides toadventure. Quick breathers,
(12:37):
calming walks or heart-poundinghikes. We feel better when we
get out more.
Find quality kit and 50 years ofoutdoor wisdom. Plus, National
Trust supporters get 15% offwalking kit in-store and online.
Feel in your element, in theelements at Cotswold Outdoor.
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