Fern fern ("Onoclea sensibilis"). Giant water fern ("Salvinia molesta") is one of the world's worst aquatic weeds. The important fossil fuel coal consists of the remains of primitive plants, including ferns. Ferns have been studied and found to be useful in the removal of heavy metals, especially arsenic, from the soil. Other ferns with some economic significance include: The study of ferns and other pteridophytes is called pteridology. A pteridologist is a specialist in the study of pteridophytes in a broader sense that includes the more distantly related lycophytes. Pteridomania is a term for the Victorian era craze of fern collecting
Evolutionary history of plants repeatedly. While the form of early trees was similar to that of today's, the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the group that contain all modern trees, had yet to evolve. The dominant tree groups today are all seed plants, the gymnosperms, which include the coniferous trees, and the angiosperms, which contain all fruiting and flowering trees. No free-sporing trees like "Archaeopteris" exist in the extant flora. It was long thought that the angiosperms arose from within the gymnosperms, but recent molecular evidence suggests that their living representatives form two distinct groups. The molecular data has yet to be fully reconciled with