The Chinese brake fern looks unassuming. But Pteris vittata has a superpower: It sucks up arsenic, tucks the toxic metal away in its fronds and lives to tell the tale. No other plants or animals are ...

Looking very “unfernlike,” the American Climbing Fern has individual leaves that look something like a hand. About the size of a quarter, they can be easy to overlook. Credit: PHOTO BY BILL DANIELSON ...

I covered the evolution of ferns, their place in the general evolution of terrestrial plants and the curious nature of their reproductive cycle. To put it plainly, things got away from me and I didn’t ...