Fern plants. Like all other vascular plants, the diploid sporophyte is the dominant phase or generation in the life cycle. The gametophytes of ferns, however, are very different from those of seed plants. They are free-living and resemble liverworts, whereas those of seed plants develop within the spore wall and are dependent on the parent sporophyte for their nutrition. A fern gametophyte typically consists of: Ferns first appear in the fossil record in the early Carboniferous period. By the Triassic, the first evidence of ferns related to several modern families appeared. The great fern radiation occurred in the late Cretaceous, when
The Ferns of Great Britain and Ireland was Bradbury and Evans. Bradbury patented the process after seeing the invention of Alois Auer - though the identity of its inventor grew to be a subject of debate. The technique was briefly in vogue, but did not persist in printing. Bradbury, along with Auer, believed the technique to be an enormous advance in printing. However, the plants and other subjects that could be successfully printed in this way were few. Ferns were one of the few plants with a form that could be replicated, the shape of the fronds being largely two-dimensional. In this work the ferns, a plant