A frond is a large, divided leaf.[1] In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds[2] and some botanists restrict the term to this group.[3] Other botanists allow the term frond to also apply to the large leaves of cycads, as well as palms (Arecaceae) and various other flowering plants, such as mimosa or sumac.[4][5] "Frond" is commonly used to identify a large, compound leaf, but if the term is used botanically to refer to the leaves of ferns and algae it may be applied to smaller and undivided leaves.
Fronds have particular terms describing their components. Like all leaves, fronds usually have a stalk connecting them to the main stem. In botany, this leaf stalk is generally called a petiole, but in regard to fronds specifically it is called a stipe, and it supports a flattened blade (which may be called a lamina), and the continuation of the stipe into this portion is called the rachis. The blades may be simple (undivided), pinnatifid (deeply incised, but not truly compound), pinnate (compound with the leaflets arranged along a rachis to resemble a feather), or further compound (subdivided). If compound, a frond may be compound once, twice, or more.
- ^ Raven, Evert Eichhorn (2004). The Biology of Plants (7th ed.). New York, New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
- ^ Gifford, Ernest M.; Foster, Adriance S. (1989). Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants (3rd ed.). New York, New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
- ^ Judd, Walter S.; Campbell, Christopher S.; Donoghue, Michael J.; Kellogg, Elizabeth A.; Stevens, Peter F. (2007). Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach (3rd ed.). Sunderland, Massachusetts: Sinauer.
- ^ Jones, David L. (1993). Cycads of the World. Smithsonian Institution Press, USA. ISBN 0730103382.
- ^ Allaby, Michael (1992). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Botany. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192860941.