Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Refernc* (for Reference, etc.)

My grandmother's favorite plant was the fern and I often find myself referencing the hardy perennial she planted many years ago still waving its huge fan-like fronds in my garden. With similar reliability, the typo Refernc* comes up 17 times in OhioLINK. Ferns are weird and prehistoric, sort of like flying dinosaurs, and the collection and cultivation of them was a preoccupation of the Victorians. Ferns get by with neither seeds nor flowers, reproducing by means of spores. Plus, if it weren't for Fern, Wilbur would never have become Some Pig.

(Giant tree fern in Kew Gardens, from Wikimedia Commons.)

Carol Reid

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