Brittle Bladder Fern or Fragile Fern Cystopteris fragilis is an abundant northern plant that prefers neutral soil among limey rocks in damp shady crevices. One of the earliest spring ferns, Bladder fern fronds wither during droughts and quickly reappear after the next rainy spell. Here the fern is sheltered within a deep chemically weathered solution pocket or ‘gryke’ in the base limestone.
Alex Hyde is one of Britain’s leading exponents of close-up nature photography. His award-winning images portray a hidden world of extraordinary beauty. “To this day I delight in revealing tiny details of subjects that would be missed by the naked eye. Many of my pictures involve photographing moving subjects smaller than a grain of rice. Nature provides me with an endless array of fascinating subjects.”
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