fiddlehead

• ⇰ any of several tall ferns of northern temperate regions having graceful arched fronds and sporophylls resembling ostrich plumes.
• ⇰ New World fern (<spn>Osmunda cinnamonea</spn>) having woolly cinnamon-colored spore-bearing fronds in early spring later surrounded by green fronds, called also fiddlehead fern>; the early uncurling fronds are edible, and sometimes considered as a vegetab
• ⇰ an ornament on a ship's bow, curved like the volute or scroll at the head of a violin. Sometimes it serves the function of a billhead>.