CHAP, i.] Sexuality in Cryptogams. 441 



thrown a clear light on the character of the male and female 

 organs, and on the way in which the embryo is formed by 

 repeated division of the egg-cell present before fertilisation, we 

 continued quite in the dark respecting the particular nature 

 of the fertilisation. Observation and experiment had estab- 

 lished the fact, that the influence of the spermatozoids on the 

 archegonia was required to produce an embryo in the latter. 

 Female moss-plants 1 separated from the male, macrospores in 

 the Vascular Cryptogams separated from the microspores, had 

 in all cases proved unproductive ; but it was not even certainly 

 known to what point in the female organ the spermatozoids 

 force their way. It is true that Lesczyc and after him 

 Mercklin had seen the entry of moving spermatozoids into 

 the mouth of archegonia in Ferns ; but Lesczyc's account of 

 the part which he supposed them to play there afterwards, was 

 proved to be an illusion. I had myself observed motionless 

 spermatozoids halfway down the neck of archegonia of an 

 Equisetum ; but nothing was to be learnt of the manner in 

 which the spermatozoid affects the egg-cell. Then it happened 

 that in the spring of 1851, being engaged in observing the 

 development of the organs of vegetation of Ferns, I repeatedly 

 saw spermatozoids moving about in the basilar cells which en- 

 close the egg-cell in the archegonia of Ferns, and the majority of 

 them even playing about the egg-cell. Their movements were 

 put an end to during the observation by the commencement of 

 changes, which the contents of young vegetable cells which 

 have been cut open usually experience under the prolonged 

 influence of water.' Later observations leave no doubt now 

 that in the Muscineae and Ferns single spermatozoids force 

 their way into the naked egg-cell of the archegonium. 



1 W. P. Schimper, in his ' Recherches anatomiques et morphologiques 

 sur les Mousses' of 1850, had made some important statements respecting 

 the sterility of female moss-plants growing at a distance from male speci- 

 mens, and proved that the presence of male plants among females that are 

 otherwise barren renders them fruitful. 



