74 FINDING FERNS TO TRANSPLANT 
such a thing. It is only the young crosiers, or un- 
folding fronds, that Mr. Percy called fiddleheads. 
He said the plant itself was a brake — the cinnamon- 
fern. In talking to himself, however, he called it 
Osmiinda cinnamomea. 
I do not remember all that Mr. Percy said, be- 
cause I was so eager to see if he and Joseph would 
succeed in getting its large root-stock up from the 
ground without hurting the fiddleheads. The curi- 
ous look that these latter have in the woods I shall 
never forget, and, now that we are to plant them in 
the garden, I shall be able to watch them unfold 
and to learn for myself about their fronds. In 
speaking of ferns, Mr. Percy said, we must say 
fronds instead of leaves. 
He and Joseph had a hard time getting the two 
ferns they chose to transplant loosened from the 
earth. They dug around them in square blocks 
with the trowel, and then gradually worked them 
free from the rest of the root-stock, which was 
altogether too large to carry away. Their work 
would have been easier if they had had a spade. 
When at length they were in my basket, Mr. Percy 
carried it. It was indeed quite heavy. 
Before we had gone much farther, we found the 
maidenhair fern. This fern was well known to 
both Joseph and me, but neither of us would have 
recognised it as we saw it then, had it not been for 
Mr. Percy. Its crosiers were beginning tO' uncoil 
in their curious way, and parts of them were cov- 
