"A 60 million year divergence is approximately equivalent to a human mating with a lemur"

The love between two ferns knows few bounds, it appears. A DNA analysis of a hybrid fern shows that its parents are two different species separated by nearly 60 million years of evolution.

“A 60 million year divergence is approximately equivalent to a human mating with a lemur,” says Carl Rothfels, a fern researcher at the University of British Columbia, who headed the study. The hybrid is a record, he says.

The freak fern, known as Cystocarpium roskamianum, isn’t rare. It can be found spreading its fronds across the French Pyrenees. You can even buy it at some European garden centers, Rothfels says.

But fern researchers have always thought it looked sort of weird.