The moonwort (Botrychium lunaria), often confounded with the common "honesty" (Lunaria biennis) of our gardens, so called from the semi-lunar shape of the segments of its frond, was credited with the most curious properties, the old alchemists affirming that it was good among other things for converting quicksilver into pure silver, and unshoeing such horses as trod upon it.

THE LOBSTER THE SHRIMP SEA LILY SEA ANEMONE SEA-WEED FROND SEA MAT MEDUSA A MEDUSOID PRECIOUS WENTLETRAP COWRIES LESSON I. FIVE-FINGERED JACK.

[Illustration: SEA-WEED FROND.]

For it must be remembered that the frond of a sea-weed is not merely leaf, but root also; that it not only breathes air, but feeds on water; and that even the so-called root by which a sea-weed holds to the rock is really only an anchor, holding mechanically to the stone, but not deriving, as the root of a land-plant would, any nourishment from it.

A little fly-catcher shot up from the frond below, poised a moment, and dropped back with closed wings.

Bushes with twisted and fantastic arms, growing, they or their ancestors, from time immemorial in the clefts of the rock, reach towards the light, and the elfish hart's-tongue fern, itself half in darkness, points down with frond that never moves in that eternal stillness which all the winds of heaven pass over, to a thicker darkness whence comes the everlasting wail and groan of hidden water.

The old walls of Figeac are likewise tapestried with pellitory and ivy-linaria, with here and there a fern pushing its deep-green frond farther into the shadow, or an orpine sedum lifting its head of purple flowers into the sunshine that changes it to a flame.

Sometimes the prothallus itself buds directly from the frond without spores, for which process the term apóspory is used.

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).

A frond is pinnátifid when its lobes extend halfway or more to the rachis or midvein as in the middle lobes of the pinnátifid spleenwort (Fig. 3).

The pinnæ of a frond are often pinnátifid when the frond itself is pinnate; and a frond may be pinnate in its lower part and become pinnátifid higher up as in the pinnátifid spleenwort just mentioned (Fig. 3).

The pinnæ of a frond are often pinnátifid when the frond itself is pinnate; and a frond may be pinnate in its lower part and become pinnátifid higher up as in the pinnátifid spleenwort just mentioned (Fig. 3).

The pinnæ of a frond are often pinnátifid when the frond itself is pinnate; and a frond may be pinnate in its lower part and become pinnátifid higher up as in the pinnátifid spleenwort just mentioned (Fig. 3).

1. Fruiting portion in the middle of the frond; two to four pairs of fertile pinnæ.

Fruiting portion at the apex of the frond.

(1) Fruit-dots oblong, parallel with the midrib, somewhat sunken in the tissues of the frond.

[Illustration] Shorter and irregularly scattered on the under side of the frond, some parallel to the midrib, others oblique to it, and often in pairs or joined at the ends; blade tapering to a slender tip.

[Illustration: Fig. 7] THE FERN FAMILY PROPER OR REAL FERNS POLYPODIÀCEÆ Green, leafy plants whose spores are borne in spore-cases (sporangia), which are collected in dots or clusters (fruit-dots or sori) on the back of the frond or form lines along the edge of its divisions.

Fruit-dots round, naked, arranged on the back of the frond in one or more rows each side of the midrib.

[Illustration: Fruited Frond]

[Illustration: Common Bracken or Brake, a Sterile Frond.

Var. cristata has forked pinnæ somewhat crowded toward the summit of the frond.

Its frond-like branches are closely covered with very small sharp-pointed leaves of a yellow-green color, smooth and shining, and they remain on the tree five or six years.

A thousand may be symbolized by a frond of fern, having ten or more leaves, and to this a common leaflet may be added to increase the number of thousands.