Antiquity in our Midst
Plant blindness is a term J. H. Wandersee and E. E. Schussler coined in 1999, defining how people do not recognize the importance of plants due to their lack of mobility and motion. I suspect this issue would be even more problematic if the plant did not offer attractive and colorful flowers to beckon pollinators. This is an underlying problem with the appreciation of ferns. They provide wonderful textures and design solutions for the garden and certainly offer a sense of permanence. For ferns, permanence is not measured in mere years or decades of living in a garden, but an incomprehensible 300 million years as some genera of ferns are among the most ancient plants on earth. Interestingly, one of the oldest fern families contains a NJ native many people have yet to ‘recognize’ – Osmundastrum cinnamomeum, commonly known as Cinnamon Fern.
Bruce Crawford
