On a stony slope in Glen Affric, hopes are high that one of Britain’s rarest ferns can regain a foothold and recover.

Staff from Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) and the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) have translocated and planted 250 oblong woodsia (Woodsia ilvensis) on a hillside in the glen.

The small mountain fern was virtually wiped out by commercial collectors responding to the Victorian craze for ferns – pteridomania – that began in the late 1840s and continues to be threatened by habitat fragmentation and climate change.