196 ARTHUR HENFREY 



In the search for the male organs of the fern attention was 

 naturally directed to the neighbourhood of the sorus, and the 

 stomata, indusia and glandular appendages were in turn mistaken 

 by various observers for the anthers. The "limit" was reached 

 by Griffith who, as is stated at page 190, conjectured that the 

 Anabena filaments which accompany the megasporangia of 

 Azolla were no other than the male organs of that plant. 



Schleiden spoke of these researches with the utmost scorn. 

 "For my part I am surprised that no one has yet insisted upon 

 the presence of the organs of sense, as eyes and ears in plants, 

 since they are possessed by animals. Such an assumption would 

 not be a bit more absurd than the mania of insisting upon having 

 anthers in the Cryptogams, simply because they are found in 

 the Phanerogams." 



All these ill-grounded hypotheses were swept away in 1844 

 when Nageli discovered antheridia containing spermatozoids on 

 the "cotyledon" or pro-embryo of the fern the prothallus we 

 call it now. Nageli at once recognised their essential agreement 

 with the antheridia already known in the Bryophytes and com- 

 pared the spermatozoids with the corresponding structures in 

 animals. But as he overlooked the existence of the archegonia, 

 or rather by some lapse mistook them for stages in the develop- 

 ment of the antheridia, it is not surprising that he was at a loss 

 to understand the significance of his discovery, and that he 

 should have commented on his dilemma in the following terms. 

 "Seeing that the female organs (spores) arise on the frond at a 

 much later stage of development, and long after the pro-embryo 

 has died away, the function of the spermatozoids is far from 

 evident." 



It was only three years later that light was thrown on the 

 situation, and from an unexpected quarter. Count Suminski, 

 an amateur microscopist, announced the discovery of additional 

 reproductive organs on the fern pro-embryo, which he clearly 

 distinguished from the "spiral filament organs" or antheridia. 

 His full paper, which appeared in 1848, marks an epoch in 

 morphology, and was a very remarkable performance. In it he 

 redescribes the antheridia and spermatozoids detecting their 

 tufted cilia which Nageli had overlooked. The archegonia he 



