From the archive record
Himalayan ferns in the monsoon season in Landour, Uttarakhand. In the monsoon season in Landour, ferns are a very common sight and they can be seen growing on almost every tree, rock-face and hillside. A few months earlier, the fern fronds of a particular variety of fern are sold in local vegetable markets as, when cooked well, they actually taste nice and can be eaten as a rich and delicious source of iron and vitamins. A fern is a member of a group of roughly 12,000 species of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers. They differ from mosses by being vascular (i.e. having water-conducting vessels). They have stems and leaves, like other vascular plants. Most ferns have what are called fiddleheads that expand into fronds, which are each delicately divid