An upraised fist is what one might call a “floating signifier.” One sentence and I’m already out as an effete northeastern liberal. If referring to semiotics makes me a liberal so be it! In various contexts an upraised fist can mean defiance, allegiance, unity, resistance or anger towards something hovering above you, maybe a signifier.
I was struck recently by what looked out of the corner of my eye like dozens of upraised green fists. When I looked more carefully I saw that I had mistaken a fern’s circinate vernation for defiance. Or had I?
Ferns are not like other plants. They hardly ever flower. In this case when I say “hardly ever,” I mean never. They never flower because they aren’t flowering plants. They aren’t even seed plants! They don’t make seeds! Then, Mr. effete northeastern liberal, how do you get more ferns.
In seed plants the naughty business happens when pollen fertilizes an egg cell producing a zygote and it pretty much goes forward like in animals. In ferns things are a little different. The fern makes spores which if they’re lucky land on a nice spot of real estate where they grow into a tiny little plant called a gametophyte. You’ve never seen one unless you wield a microscope with some frequency. The ferns naughty business goes on around this little plant. A sperm swims over to an egg and fertilizes it. From this grows the ferns we all know and love.
Except for my mother. She hates ferns. It seems like a lot of effort to hate ferns. There are so many other things to hate, why waste it on little plants.
Perhaps she’s onto something though, look at the little green fists and their “alternative lifestyle.” They don’t have seeds, pollen or flowers. What kind of plants are they anyway?
Many of them, for one, are delicious. When the right species are harvested as fiddleheads they make delightful little spring snacks. Generally people eat Matteuccia strutheiopteris the Ostrich fern (so called because it’s flightless). Some also eat bracken fern, there are two in the Dennstaedtiaceae family in Massachusetts. There are those who say this last causes cancer, some of them even have fancy degrees to back this up.
What I saw, I think, was cinnamon fern, Osmunda cinnamomea, and who could really object to such a sweet name as that? It didn’t really look very edible, what with the threatening fist and all. But what a little cheering beasty to find out in the woods sticking a fist up for nature despite how warm and dry it is. They were here before the flowering plants and the dinosaurs. They’ll be here after we’re gone, raising their little fist.
