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
Máedóc of Ferns Strathclyde; Irish sources instead make him a son of Sedna, a chieftain of Connaught, and his wife, Eithne. He was a first cousin of St. Dallán Forgaill. These separate origins, his work in Wales, the extraordinary span of Aidan's activity, and the appearance of two dates of death has led some scholars—such as Sabine Baring-Gould—to propose that the existing stories of Maedoc are a conflation of two separate Aeds, one Welsh and one Irish, who served as bishop of Ferns a generation apart. Still other inconsistencies seem to be related to confusion of these Aeds with Aed mac Bricc, who