DEVELOPMENT IN THE LADY-FERN. 357 



is a singular fact. The discovery, however, of numerous pro- 

 liferous buds which appeared upon some very small plants, which 

 I exhibited here in 1882, led me to institute further inquiries into 

 this subject. I then ascertained that Mr. Mapplebeck had 

 already observed the same phenomenon, and raised plants from 

 similar bulbils, which appeared identical in position and character 

 with those of the Asplenia. Last year, as already remarked, I found 

 auother and very distinct form of proliferation on a mature plant 

 of A. F.-f. plumosum divaricatum, upon which numerous bulbils 

 were evolved in the place of the sori ; this, be it observed, being 

 on the underside of the pinnae, a most unlikely place for such 

 growths. This same transformation of the reproductive energy 

 had already been observed on three other kindred forms of 

 Athyrium, upon one of which the bulbils and sori were scattered 

 almost indiscriminately over the back of the fronds, some of the 

 sori seeming to be in an intermediate amorphous condition ; 

 though in all other cases, so far as I could see, the sori and bulbils 

 were distinctly differentiated by the presence in the former case 

 of an indusium, and in the latter cf lanceolate scales arranged 

 shuttlecock fashion around the bulbil, no trace of indusium 

 existing. Such bulbils had, until this season, failed invariably to 

 yield plants, and seemed incapable of forming a proper axis of 

 growth. Mr. G. B. Wollaston has, however, succeeded in ob- 

 taining plants this spring from A. F.-f. plumosum elegans, and 

 one or two of those from A. F.-f. plumosum divaricatum have 

 developed fresh fronds with me. 



Prom this it will be seen that no less than three distinct forma 

 of proliferation have now been observed on the Athyria. 



1. Bulbils of the ordinary character developed in the axils and 

 on the superior surface of the pinna-, and agreeing in character 

 with the ordinary bulbils of the Asplenia. 



2. Bulbils formed apparently by transmuted spore-producing 

 energy and occupying the place of sori, i. e. on the underside of 

 the pinna3-a position so far, I believe, quite unrecorded in 

 connection with any of the Filices. 



3. A new form of proliferation altogether, viz. proliferous 

 prothalli arising from pseudobulbils produced by a different trans- 

 mutation of the reproductive force, and evolving plants only after 

 the prothalli have produced the usual sexual organs common to 

 prothalli resulting from spores. 



