Climbing1 FERN, the botanical genus Lygodium, with about twenty species, chiefly in the warmer parts of the Old World, of interest from its climbing habit. The plants have a creeping stem, on the upper face of which is borne a row of leaves. Each leaf has a slender stem-like axis, which twines round a support and bears leaflets at intervals; it goes on growing indefinitely. It is a favourite warm greenhouse plant.
1 The word “climb” (O.E. climban), meaning strictly to ascend (or similarly descend) by progressive self-impulsion, with some apparent degree of laborious effort and by means of contact with the surface traversed, is connected with the same root as in “cleave” and “cling.” For Alpine climbing, &c., see Mountaineering.
