March, 2025

The 19^th C was the heyday of amateur botanising. It was a particularly acceptable pursuit for gentile young women, and collections or artful displays of dried flowers and leaves are often found amongst rare books of the period. Albums are sought after and rare.

 The Victorian enthusiasm for ferns was such that a term was invented: Pteridomania, derived from the taxonomic name for ferns, pteridophytes, or spore-bearing vascular plants, distinguished from seed-bearing flowering plants.  Fern motifs were frequently used at the time on pottery, textiles and many other forms of arts and crafts.

New Zealand has a large and very unique fern flora, and while there was no apparent mania, collections were popular. We have for sale two collections of mounted New Zealand specimens artfully displayed, one a fold-out album of 8 sheets and the other an album of 45 species in armorial binding from G Smith of Edinburgh.

Along with collections went more scientific descriptions of national fern flora. An early New Zealand volume, which also gave directions for collection and cultivation was published by the botanist and engineer Henry Field in 1890. We also offer a very fine set of 8 volumes on Ferns: British and Exotic, published in 1856.

As Field says in his Introduction, New Zealand is the ‘Land of the fern’, with around 200 species, and some still to be discovered and described. The search continues.