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
Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns Roman Catholic Diocese of Ferns The Diocese of Ferns () is a Roman Catholic diocese in south-eastern Ireland. It is one of six suffragan dioceses in the ecclesiastical province of Dublin and is subject to the Archdiocese of Dublin. The incumbent Ordinary is Denis Brennan. The See covers most of County Wexford and some of County Carlow and County Wicklow. The major towns are Enniscorthy, Gorey, New Ross and Wexford. It is a suffragan of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. W. H. Grattan Flood, author of the "History of the Diocese of Ferns", illustrates the origin of the Diocese,