This may look like any old fern, but I can assure you that it's not! It's Thyrsopteris elegans, a fern endemic (ie grows nowhere else) to the Juan Fernandez island group, in the Pacific Ocean 400 miles west of Santiago in Chile. The group is best known for being the setting of the abandonment of sailor Alexander Selkirk there in 1704, supposedly the basis of the novel 'Robinson Crusoe'. One of the islands, formerly Más
a Tierra, has been officially named Isla Robinson Crusoe by the Chilean government.

We have a couple of dozen of these very rare ferns growing outside here, surviving so far with very little damage.  They are endangered in their homeland, so maybe our little group can act as a safeguard in case disaster strikes!

In both front corners of the pictures you can see young self-sown plants of Dicksonia antarctica, the Tasmanian tree fern.