Ferns (also known as Filicophytes or Pteridophytes) are an ancient group of plants that evolved from mosses around 400 million years ago, before the evolution of flowering plants. There are now more than ten-thousand fern species alive on earth and at least four-hundred species in Australia. They are found in an amazing diversity of habitats and structural forms. For example, birds nest ferns, staghorns and elkhorns, tree ferns, to structures like those in a bracken or fishbone ferns which people generally think of when they imagine a fern.