(Meaning, literally, without spores.)]


VERNATION

All true ferns come out of the ground head foremost, coiled up like a
watch-spring, and are designated as "fiddle-heads," or crosiers. (A real
crosier is a bishop's staff.) Some of these odd young growths are covered
with "fern wool," which birds often use in lining their nests. This wool
usually disappears later as the crosier unfolds into the broad green blade.
The development of plant shoots from the bud is called vernation (Latin,
_ver_ meaning spring), and this unique uncoiling of ferns, "circinnate
vernation."


VEINS

The veins of a fern are free, when, branching from the mid-vein, they do
not connect with each other, and simple when they do not fork. When
the veins intersect they are said to anastomose (Greek, an opening, or
network), and their meshes are called arèolæ or áreoles (Latin, _areola_, a
little open space).


EXPLANATION OF TERMS

A frond is said to be pinnate (Latin, _pinna_, a feather), when its primary
divisions extend to the rachis, as in the Christmas fern (Fig. 1). A frond
is bipinnate (Latin, _bis_, twice) when the lobes of the pinnæ extend to
the midvein as in the royal fern (Fig. 2). These divisions of the pinnæ are