High up in a tree, preferably one whose knots and lichen-covered excrescences are calculated to help conceal the nest that so cleverly imitates them, the mother humming-bird saddles her exquisite cradle to a horizontal limb. She lines it with plant down, fluffy bits from cat-tails, and the fronds of fern, felting the material into a circle that an elm-leaf amply roofs over. Outside, lichens or bits of bark blend the nest so harmoniously with its surroundings that one may look long and thoroughly before discovering it. Two infinitesimal, white eggs tax the nest accommodation to its utmost.英文原著 · 《Bird Neighbors》
"I couldn't do it," he explained, feverishly, to the waving banana fronds. "I wanted to, but I couldn't. A gentleman can't drink with the man that he blackmails."英文原著 · 《Cabbages and Kings》
Saw the Dreams of the Sky,--scudding mockeries of ridged foam,--and shadowy stratification of capes and coasts and promontories long-drawn out,--and imageries, multicolored, of mountain frondage, and sierras whitening above sierras,--and phantom islands ringed around with lagoons of glory;---英文原著 · 《Chita-A Memory of Last Island》
The stamens of the Bennettiteae are arranged precisely as in an angiospermous flower, but in form and structure they are like the fertile fronds of a Fern, in fact the compound pollen-sacs, or synangia as they are technically called, almost exactly agree with the spore-sacs of a particular family of Ferns--the Marattiaceae, a limited group, now mainly tropical, which was probably more prominent in the later Palaeozoic times than at present. The scaly hairs, or ramenta, which clothe every part of the plant, are also like those of Ferns.英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
The tree Lobelias which linger in the mountains of Central Africa, in Tropical America and in the Sandwich Islands have the aspect of extreme antiquity. I may add a further striking illustration from Professor Seward: "The tall, graceful fronds of Matonia pectinata, forming miniature forests on the slopes of Mount Ophir and other districts in the Malay Peninsula in association with Dipteris conjugata and Dipteris lobbiana, represent a phase of Mesozoic life which survives英文原著 · 《Darwin and Modern Science》
The "flamboyant"--not in flower, now, but when in flower lives up to its name, we are told. Another tree with a lovely upright tassel scattered among its rich greenery, red and glowing as a firecoal. Here and there a gum-tree; half a dozen lofty Norfolk Island pines lifting their fronded arms skyward. Groups of tall bamboo. Saw one bird. Not many birds here, and they have no music--and the flowers not much smell, they grow so fast. Everything neat and trim and clean like the town. The loveliest trees and the greatest variety I have ever seen anywhere, except approaching Darjeeling.英文原著 · 《Following the Equator》