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).
In the case of the plants of the Carboniferous forests, this development was extensive. The simplest type of spore production in living seedless vascular plants is found in the leafless whisk fern, Psilotum, a member of the phylum Psilotophyta. This sporophyte (2n) plant, really little more than a branching twig, has many sets of three-fused sporangia, which produce spores through meiosis .