Fern sex is not some flowery business with bees ... After tweaking by the recipient prothallus, it’s the same gibberellin molecule that’s active in seed plants, Sun notes.

Ferns are very old plants that long predate ... heart-shaped plants known as prothallus are formed. These tiny plants attach themselves to the soil by rhizoids, which are single-celled, hairlike ...

Interestingly, all other living ferns produce just one type of prothallus, not separate male and female forms. It is this degree of specialisation that makes the nardoo genus, Marsilea ...

This miniscule bisexual plant, called a prothallus, gives rise via a fertilized egg to the familiar fern plant, which slowly develops leaves, roots, rhizomes, and eventual independence from the ...

When a spore lands on suitably wet soil it grows into a tiny, single-leaved structure that looks nothing like a fern (called a prothallus) that produces both sperm and eggs. After a rain ...