Enter Lady Angela, a botanist with a photosynthetic tattoo of a fern on her arm…

During the 1880s and 1890s, British courts prosecuted “botanical criminals”—citizens caught trespassing on private estates to steal ferns. Common plants that once grew wild across Britain had become valuable enough to risk criminal charges. This was pteridomania at its peak.

What Was Pteridomania?

Charles Kingsley coined the term “pteridomania” combining the Greek word for fern (Pteridophyta) with “mania.” From the 1840s through the 1890s, Britain was consumed by fern fever. Fern motifs appeared on textiles, wallpaper, jewelry, and pottery. Parlors displayed pressed specimens in albums. The wealthy built elaborate glass ferneries.

The Wardian Case

In 1829, London physician Dr. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward accidentally discovered that ferns could thrive in sealed glass containers. He had placed a moth chrysalis in damp soil inside a sealed bottle and noticed a fern spore germinated and flourished without additional water or care. This led to the Wardian case—a miniature greenhouse that protected delicate plants from London’s coal smoke and pollution. These cases became essential Victorian status symbols, making it possible to grow ferns indoors for the first time.

Why Ferns?

Democratized Science. The Victorian era made natural history accessible across all social classes. Fern collecting required only a basket and countryside access—a vasculum (specialized metal case lined with damp moss) kept specimens fresh during transport. 

Railway Expansion. The 1840s brought hundreds of miles of new railway lines, connecting city dwellers to remote Scottish borders, Welsh hills, and Devon valleys. Weekend collecting expeditions became possible for the first time.

Women’s Freedom. While women were (mostly) excluded from physics and chemistry, botany was considered appropriately feminine. More significantly, fern hunting provided rare social permission for women to venture unchaperoned into the countryside for all-day expeditions—a subtle form of Victorian rebellion.

The Glasshouse Boom. After the 1851 Crystal Palace Exhibition’s success, middle-class families added conservatories to their homes. Ferns thrived in these warm, humid environments.

The Biology

For centuries, ferns puzzled naturalists because they produced no flowers or seeds. European legends claimed invisible fern seeds granted invisibility, restored sight, or revealed buried treasure. The Red Fern Flower supposedly bloomed only at midnight on Midsummer’s Eve, granting riches and the ability to understand animal language.

By the Victorian era, scientists had discovered that ferns reproduce via spores through a complex two-stage life cycle unlike flowering plants. Rather than dispelling the mystery, this explanation deepened public fascination with these ancient plants.

Environmental Devastation

Overharvesting caused severe damage still visible today:

Killarney fern: Disappeared from most of Scotland and southwest EnglandOblong Woodsia: Numbers plummeted in the Moffat Hills, once home to Britain’s most extensive populationsDickie’s bladder-fern: Completely eradicated from its type locality (original discovery site) in Kincardineshire by 1860, though the species has since recovered elsewhere The Black Market

Demand exceeded supply by the 1860s. Commercial dealers hired guides to strip remote habitats, stockpiling rare species in greenhouses for year-round sale. Wealthy collectors paid extraordinary sums—ten to twenty pounds for a single rare specimen when a housemaid earned twelve pounds annually. Courts regularly prosecuted fern thieves throughout the 1880s and 1890s as private estates were plundered for rare specimens.

The Decline

Pteridomania began fading in the 1890s and ended with Queen Victoria’s death in 1901. The craze left permanent marks: it established amateur naturalism across all social classes, gave women access to scientific observation and collection, and demonstrated how public enthusiasm could drive both scientific advancement and environmental destruction.

Icy Betrayals

My novel ICY BETRAYALS is set in 1885 at pteridomania’s height, when Wardian cases filled fashionable homes and collectors faced prosecution for fern theft. Lady Angela, a botanist with a photosynthetic fern tattoo, exists in a world where the scientific and the magical intersect—where ferns hold secrets beyond what Victorian naturalists could diagram or classify.

FURTHER READING

Whittingham, Sarah. Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania. Frances Lincoln, 2012.

Kingsley, Charles. Glaucus, or the Wonders of the Shore. 1855.

Keogh, Luke. The Wardian Case: How a Simple Box Moved Plants and Changed the World. University of Chicago Press, 2020.

Pteridomania: The Victorian Fern Craze | Anne Renwick