270 MR MACVICAR on the Germination of the Filices. 



although, if authority were sufficient to satisfy the doubts of all, 

 their station should be among the Monocotyledones, having been 

 placed there by the two greatest botanists of the age, BROWN and 

 DE CANDOLLE. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE XI. 



Fig. 1. A sporule of Polypodium vulgare begun to germinate. The frondose por- 

 tion is somewhat advanced before any radicles are emitted. Figs. 2, 3, 

 4, 5, different stages of progress. Fig. 6., at this stage the cellular struc- 

 ture becomes distinct, and radicles are emitted from the lower portion of 

 the frond. Figs. 7, 8., the fronds now become emarginate, and curiously 

 apiculate. The radicles are emitted from the margin and under surface. 

 Those from the sporule and lowest part of the frond begin to shrink, 

 along with that portion of the frond, as in Fig. 9., until, as in Fig. 10., 

 the sporule is separated. 



Fig. 11. The true frond beginning to shoot out from the centre of the hepaticae-like 

 form (copied from the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, Ait. Filices). 



Fig. 12. Plantule of Aspidlum Filix jcEmina, (copied from SPRENGEL'S Introduc- 

 tion to the Study of Cryptogamic Plants). 



Fig. 13. Plantule of Polypodium lycopodioides (copied from LINDSAY'S Observa- 

 tions, &c. LIN. Trans, vol. ii.). 



Fig. 14. Aspidium aculeatum (LIGHTF.) in a state in which they are easily found 

 growing spontaneously. 



The first ten figures are magnified. 



