With several thousand living species, ferns are the second most diverse vascular plants around today, after angiosperms. Ferns are also abundant and well-known in the fossil record. This episode, Aly joins us to explore the dizzying variety of ferns and their ferny-friends, past and present.

In the news: When the Earth Was Green, weird wasps, and ancient claws. And also dire wolves.

Time markers: Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00 News: 00:04:20 Main discussion, Part 1: 00:46:45 Main discussion, Part 2: 01:37:00 Patron question: 02:20:40

Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/

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When the Earth Was Green: https://bookshop.org/p/books/when-the-earth-was-green-plants-animals-and-evolution-s-greatest-romance-riley-black/21356911 https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781250354211-when-the-earth-was-green Find Riley at @restingdinoface.bsky.social And http://rileyblack.net/

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The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org

Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0