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  • Book extract

The neuroscience of how we navigate

Christopher Kemp describes the mysterious case of Amanda Eller, a hiker who got lost in the woods. How can someone take a few steps off a well-marked trail and completely disappear?

  • Article

The poetic language of health

When his doctors could only offer phone consultations, James Morland turned to poetry to make sense of the medical terms describing his symptoms and test results.

  • Article

Keeping death close

Scattering her father’s ashes, Lauren Entwistle found herself longing for something physical that proved he once was a living, breathing person. Here she reflects on the objects that help us to grieve and remember.

  • Article

Searching for a place to call home

Wherever she’s lived, Tanya Perdikou has rarely felt at home, and numerous moves have perpetuated a sense of disconnection. But signs from nature offer powerful moments of connection.

All stories (4)

Images

  • A dandelion (Taraxacum species): flowering plant growing with young ferns. Watercolour.
  • An analysis of the British ferns and their allies / by G.W. Francis.
  • Our native ferns, or, A history of the British species and their varieties / by E.J. Lowe.
  • A young woman carrying a bundle of ferns on her back. Engraving by Edward Burton after Robert Herdman.
  • Tree-ferns in an Australian forest with two hunters in the distance. Engraving by E. Brandard, c. 1873, after N. Chevalier.
  • Athyrium niponicum (Mett.) Hance var. pictum (Maxwell) Fraser-Jenk. Woodsiaceae. Japanese Painted fern. Hardy fern. Distribution: Japan. Young fronds are boiled and eaten in Japan. However after the discovery of thaiminases in certain ferns Pteridum aquilum (bracken), Marsilea drummondii and Cheilanthes sieberi cautions are given regarding the risk of thiaminase in all ferns. It can be mostly removed by boiling, but otherwise causes vitamin B1 (thiamine) deficiency and beriberi in a matter of weeks. Eating Bracken fern also causes cancer, as do the spores, but I could find no report of other ferns being toxic. Photographed in the Medicinal Garden of the Royal College of Physicians, London.
  • Fern of Benzimidazole
  • Four fern fronds, one of a hart's tongue fern (Asplenium species). Chromolithograph after a nature print.
  • A fern frond, possibly of the male fern (Dryopteris filix-mas). Colour nature print, c. 1860.
  • Dryopteris filix-mas (Male fern)
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