When Ladies Fought in the Mud for Plants

In the 1850s, Victorian Britain experienced “Pteridomania” or Fern Fever, when the entire nation became obsessed with collecting ferns to the point of ecological disaster. Wealthy women abandoned society events to crawl through mud hunting rare specimens, single ferns sold for months of working wages, and collectors hired teams to strip entire valleys bare of every fern they could find. The mania was so intense that people built special glass buildings just for their fern collections, printed fern patterns on literally everything from wallpaper to tombstones and drove species like the Killarney fern to near extinction. The fever only broke in the 1890s when collectors had literally taken so many ferns that there weren’t enough interesting ones left to collect, leaving behind environmental damage that still affects endangered fern species today.

New episodes drop weekly. Subscribe to never miss history’s weirdest moments.

Until then, remember: truth is stranger than fiction, and history is weirder than you think.

Be sure to check out my Substack (Intelligence Bulletin from Author Daniel P. Douglas) for other podcast series, written articles, and links to my books.

Thanks for listening. Have a memorable day!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit authordanielpdouglas.substack.com