One of the loveliest names in botany is Circinnate Vernation. It rolls, echoing, off the tongue, exotic and complicated-sounding. J.R.R. Tolkien had a theory that sounds like ‘Cellar Door’ were especially beautiful, presumably because they resonated with Old English speech (ok, you can call it Anglo-Saxon if you prefer). I think he’d have loved the sound of Circinnate Vernation.

Right, what does it mean? Circinna is the Latin for a shepherd’s crook, a long stick with a curled-over end to hook errant animals out of hedges or whatever. Ferns unroll in springtime as mini-shepherd’s crooks, craftily leaving the tiny green growing tips tightly protected in the middle of the roll, while anything trying to eat the new shoot gets the toughest, oldest part to try first. Sounds like a good survival strategy for the fern.

Update: just a day later, the fronds have unrolled a turn or so.