pteridomania means A craze, in 19th-century England, for collecting ferns and for using images of ferns in the decorative arts. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
Why “pteridomania” is a great word
PTERIDOMANIA — [Noun] A mid-Victorian social craze characterized by the fervent collecting of ferns and the proliferation of their fronded imagery in domestic decoration. From the Greek pteris ("fern") and mania ("madness, frenzy"); coined in 1855 by Charles Kingsley. Unlike "botany," which denotes a dispassionate science, or "horticulture," which implies systematic cultivation, pteridomania was a democratizing fever, a fashionable disorder. It was the rustle of a pressed specimen in a velvet-lined portfolio, the ghostly green impression of a frond on a transfer-printed teacup, and the damp, peaty scent of a Wardian case in a suburban parlor—a quiet, verdant rebellion against the soot of industry, finding wildness in the most domesticated of spaces.
Etymology
From pterido- + -mania.
noun
- A craze, in 19th-century England, for collecting ferns and for using images of ferns in the decorative arts