"Fern Mania" is a condition that sweep across Great Britain & Europe for most of the 1800's only ending with the death of Queen Victoria in 1901.This one species of the botanical realm gripped British society.  Maybe the heady mix of enlightenment, industrialization, discovery & education proved a fertile ground for ideas to take root. Prince Albert's creation of the Great Exhibition of 1851 became a focal point for marketing ideas, products & human inventive potential put on show for the world to "see for a shilling". The obsession for newly discovered, hard to procure & propagation of ferns became associated with mental acuity, virility & intelligence. The famous Charles Kingsley,also an accomplished illustrator, created a mocking Latin term for this irresistible obsession, Pteridomania.