1. 1  a product of simple manual skill, as a plaited leather cord for the neck or a knife sheath, made typically by a camper or a scout. 2  work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy. 3  a project funded by the federal government out of political favoritism that is of no real value to the community or the nation.
Unfurling fiddlehead fern frond. A frond is a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group. Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the large leaves of cycads and palms (Arecaceae).
A fern is a member of a group of approximately 12,000 species of vascular plants that reproduce via spores and have neither seeds nor flowers.They differ from mosses by being vascular (i.e. having water-conducting vessels). They have stems and leaves, like other vascular plants.Most ferns have what are called fiddleheads that expand into fronds, which are each delicately divided.he gametophyte of ferns is a free-living organism, whereas the gametophyte of the gymnosperms and angiosperms is dependent on the sporophyte. Life cycle of a typical fern: 1  A diploid sporophyte phase produces haploid spores by meiosis (a process of cell division which reduces the number of chromosomes by a half).