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XIV. On the Development of Ferns from their Spores. 

 By Arthur Henfrey, Esq., F.B.S., F.L.S. 8fc. 



Read June 15, and November 2 & 16, 1852. 



1 HE remarkable discoveries published by Count Leszczyc-Suminski in 1848, together 

 with those to which they may be supposed to have led, in the allied fa mili es of the Crypto- 

 gcmia, in the researches of Messrs. Hofmeister and Mettenius, are of a character to excite 

 the strongest interest among vegetable physiologists, from the important changes which 

 they appear to necessitate in our general views of the reproduction of plants. It is cer- 

 tain, moreover, that they equally deserve the attention of animal physiologists, since the 

 phenomena which have been described seem to point directly to a much closer relationship 

 between the characters of the sexual reproduction of plants and animals, than has of late 

 years been considered probable; for, while the facts which have been demonstrated in 

 reference to the mode of fertilization in flowering plants seemed to remove the possibility 

 of tracing any satisfactory analogy, — the pollen-tube differing so widely from the sperma- 

 tozoon, — a new set of conditions have been revealed in plants, which present the strongest 

 resemblance to those met with in the' fertilization of animals. Still more, the remarkable 

 biological conditions known in the Animal Kingdom under the title of ' Alternations of 

 Generations ' are found to occur in the Vegetable Kingdom in a much more definite 

 manner than was supposed, presenting all the distinctness which characterizes them in 

 animals, and by no means confined within the debateable territory in which they were at 

 first sought, namely, in the metamorphoses of the organs of single plants. 



The observations of Suminski naturally attracted the attention of the more active vege- 

 table anatomists, and have already been repeated by several German botanists, whose 

 results, however, not only differ in many points from those of Suminski, but also among 

 themselves ; and opinions are divided both as to the actuality of the existence of the most 

 important point of all, viz. the process of impregnation, and as to the period and circum- 

 stances of its occurrence. Thus, while Von Mercklin confirms Suminski' s statements in 

 regard to the act of impregnation taking place at an early period, Schacht and Wigand 

 deny it altogether ; and, again, Hofmeister and Mettenius assert the fact of the impregna- 

 tion of a germ-cell by spermatozoids, but declare that Suminski mistook the structure of 

 the organs and the modus operandi of the phenomenon. 



Under these circumstances I believed myself performing a useful task in subjecting 

 the question to minute investigation. These researches were indeed commenced imme- 

 diately after the publication of Suminski' s treatise, but were left imperfect until the past 

 winter and the present spring, during which I have carefully repeated all my former 

 observations, and traced the development entirely through from the spore to the young 

 leafy plant, applying every available means to clear up the anatomical conditions in each 



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