The fern frond is an interesting and historic occurrence of a branching fractal. We see that the overall structure of the frond is repeated (to a degree) in each of the branching frondlets. Indentations along the edges of the sub-frondlets indicate that the pattern is trying to repeat again.
The fern frond is important historically, because it was the shape imitated by Michael Barnsley in 1993 in one of the first fractal constructions of a natural object. This showed that there is a definite mathematical link between mathematical fractals and natural objects. In fact it demonstrated that natural objects can be successfully modelled by fractals.
