Plants with feathery or feather-like leaves that reproduce by spores instead of seeds.
From Old English 'fearn,' from Proto-Germanic 'farniz.' Ferns are ancient plants, and the word itself has been relatively stable for over 1000 years of English.
Ferns are living fossils—they've barely changed in 300 million years, and they reproduce using spores instead of seeds, making them one of the last living links to the Devonian period when they ruled the planet before dinosaurs even existed!
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