Mary Jo DiLonardo has worked in print, online, and broadcast journalism for 25 years and covers nature, health, science, and animals. Young trees sometimes have smooth bark that's unbroken by ridges.

• The Australian tree fern (Cyathea cooperi) is a large tropical fern that forms a trunk. In the wild, a mature tree’s medium to dark green fronds can grow 5 to 8 feet long, but the fronds will be ...

If you want to get a sense of what life was like during the Carboniferous period some 300 million years ago, visit the Kona Cloud Forest above Kailua. The area abounds with ferns that once were ...

I recently invested in a beautiful tree fern for our shady back garden. A gardening friend told me that I’ll need to give it some protection from winter cold to prevent it being damaged. Is this ...

Ferns are ubiquitous here in south Louisiana, thriving in our moist, semi-shady areas and seemingly springing from nowhere. Take the mysterious resurrection ferns that hug the limbs of our oak trees.

Probably the first pioneer plants to arrive in Hawaii were mosses and ferns. Ferns have been around for over 360 million years. Giant tree fern forests were common for millions of years but they gave ...