Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigal
I thought that you could identify a fern by the spores on the leaves. If that is the case, bracken isn't a fern. It just looks like one. I once lived in Wales but worked in Aston university, B'ham. I was asked if I could bring in some bracken that was wanted for some research. The arguement was that I had brought back some male fern and not bracked, Until I pointed out that there were no spores on the leaves. Does it help???
Bigal
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Bracken is a fern, as this makes clear.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracken
Spores are only present at certain times, like apples on an appletree.
Although there is a very common fern known as the "male fern", it isn't actually male in the botanical sense, it is just its name.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Male_Fern
To people who have not studied ferns, many British ferns have a certain sameness so you could understandably confuse it with bracken.