The Ferns & Fern Allies include Ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, spikemosses and quillworts. They are an ancient group, with fossil evidence of members from 400 million years ago. Around 90% of current diversity in this group is accounted for by true ferns.  

Strengths within the fern collection reflect our geographical research focus areas including: the British Isles, China, South and South East Asia and South America.

Important Collections:

• Fraser-Jenkins (1948 –) We received Christopher Fraser-Jenkins’ herbarium collection from the Welsh National Herbarium in 2011, includes over 32 300 accessions both wild-collected and cultivated as well as correspondence, field books and hard drives of photographs. The collection has a broad geographical coverage with specimens collected from Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Southern Asia, North (incl. USA, Hawaii and Mexico) and Central America, Jamaica, Réunion and Africa. The Nepalese collection is particularly strong.
• David J. Middleton (1963 –), South East Asia, predominantly in the Indo-China region
• Hugh Cuming, (1791 – 1865) predominantly Philippines and South America
• Jean-François Dobremez, Nepal (1941 – 2009)
• George Samuel Jenman (1845 – 1902) Carribean and East Tropical South America