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Bearing, or producing, on the back; -- applied to ferns which produce seeds on the back of the leaf, and to certain Batrachia, the ova of which become attached to the skin of the back of the parent, where they develop; dorsiparous.

Right; just title or claim. The key of this infernal pit by due . . . I keep. Milton.

Bearing fruit on the back of the leaves, as ferns. Harris (1710).

The son of Chaos and brother of Nox, who dwelt in Erebus. To the infernal deep, with Erebus and tortures vile. Shak.

Having the sporangium destitute of a ring; -- said of certain genera of ferns.

ring or hitting; to ward off; to shut out; -- often with off; as, to fend off blows. With fern beneath to fend the bitter cold. Dryden. To fend off a boat or vessel (Naut.), to prevent its running against anything with too much violence.

Containing woody fiber and ducts, as the stems of all flowering plants and ferns; -- opposed to cellular.

An implacable or malicious foe; one who is diabolically wicked or cruel; an infernal being; -- applied specifically to the devil or a demon. Into this wild abyss the wary fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while. Milton. O woman! woman! when to ill thy mind Is bent, all hell contains no fouler fiend. Pope.…

Like a fiend; diabolically wicked or cruel; infernal; malignant; devilish; hellish. -- Fiend"ish*ly, adv. -- Fiend"ish*ness, n.

Belonging to the Filices, r ferns.

Pertaining to, or derived from, ferns; as, filicic acid.

Shaped like a fern or like the parts of a fern leaf. Smart.

Fernlike, either in form or in the nature of the method of reproduction.

d other things. You shall also, after they be ripe, neither suffer them to have straw nor fern under them, but lay them either upon some smooth table, boards, or flakes of wands, and they will last the longer. English Husbandman.

y names of plants; as, flowering ash; flowering dogwood; flowering almond, etc. Flowering fern, a genus of showy ferns (Osmunda), with conspicuous bivalvular sporangia. They usually grow in wet places. -- Flowering plants, plants which have stamens and pistils, and produce true seeds; phenogamous plants; -- distinguis…

into one body of stem and leaf, and often bearing the fructification; as, the frond of a fern or of a lichen or seaweed; also, the peculiar leaf of a palm tree.

The spore cases or conceptacles of flowerless plants, as of ferns, mosses, algae, etc., with the spores contained in them.

To feed with fuel. [Obs.] Never, alas I the dreadful name, That fuels the infernal flame. Cowley.

e is the conspicuous part of the plant body; in mosses it is the so-called moss plant; in ferns it is reduced to a small, early perishing body; and in seed plants it is usually microscopic or rudimentary.

elonging to the Yew suborder of Coniferæ. Its leaves are so like those of some maidenhair ferns, that it is also called the maidenhair tree.