Ferns have graced our planet for hundreds of millions of years. With about 12,000 named species of ferns worldwide, the variety to be found among them is staggering in its array of forms, textures, and even colors. From towering tree ferns to tiny water clovers, ferns and fern allies offer a wide range of uses in the garden and home.
This book offers useful advice on ferns and fern allies for any region, with details on cultivation, identification, landscaping, and more. The bulk of the book consists of an encyclopedic treatment of all the ferns in cultivation in the U.S. Some 700 species from 124 genera are described in detail, including physical descriptions, cultural requirements, hardiness, common names, synonyms, special uses, geographical range, and notable cultivars or related species. Each species is accompanied by a black-and-white illustration to allow for easy identification and to provide a useful means of comparing species.
Updated and greatly expanded, this new edition of Hoshizaki's original 1975 book is the most comprehensive book available on fern cultivation.
Barbara Joe Hoshizaki is president of the American Fern Society. She is a former professor of botany at Los Angeles City College and held an associate research title at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has been president of the Southern California Horticultural Institute and the Los Angeles International Fern Society, vice-president of the Pacific Horticultural Foundation, and served on the boards of many horticultural and botanical organizations. She is an honorary member of the American Fern Society, the Los Angeles International Fern Society, and the South Florida Fern Society. She has traveled widely and introduced many species to cultivation, and has written numerous articles on fern species in cultivation. She is married to a plant physiologist and lives in Los Angeles.
Dr. Robbin C. Moran is an associate curator at the New York Botanical Garden. His main interests are the evolution, geography, and ecology of ferns. Previously, he taught and did research at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, and Aarhus University in Denmark. He also worked for seven years at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis as the main author, editor, and organizer for the fern volume of Flora Mesoamericana, which treats nearly 1400 species of ferns that occur from southern Mexico to Panama and is the largest fern flora ever written. He has published more than 50 scientific papers on ferns, taught pteridology courses in Costa Rica, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia, and traveled widely in Latin America, Thailand, and Taiwan. Besides research, he currently serves as an associate editor for the American Fern Journal and Brittonia.
