The maidenhair fern, as with quite a few other ferns, has been around since before the dinosaurs, but you can still grow it at home.
Being a forest floor species they can handle the shade found indoors. They are moisture loving and do very well when kept very wet.
Below is one growing on a windowsill at home.
Wild Maidenhair ferns carpeting the ground on the forest floor are an impressive site. These I photographed in ancient coastal indigenous forest in South Africa.
Ferns of other species carpeting the ground in other areas of the same Pirie forest.
Ferns are primitive plants and are living fossils. They predate flowering plants, and cone bearing plants. They propagate my means of spores like the fungi and mushrooms that are even more primitive.
