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offspring displaying the same characters as their parents, 

 it frequently happens that examples present themselves 

 in which these characters are emphasized, as it were, 

 constituting in many cases great improvement and en- 

 hancement ot their beauty. Thus normally pinnate ferns, 

 divided but once, like Blcchnum spicant, having sported 

 naturally into deeply serrate forms, the offspring of these 

 have gone farther, and, by exaggerating the serration, 

 yielded through their spores bipinnate or even nearly 

 tripinnate varieties, and this may be taken as an example 

 of possible variation with bipinnate normal forms, which 

 may yield from somewhat more divided sports, tripinnate 

 or even quadripinnate progeny of great beauty. This has 

 happened with PolysticJmm angtdare, in the case of the lovely 

 Jones and Fox section of divisilobe plumoswns, of which a 

 batch arose in a sowing of merely '* decompositum " spores. 

 Now, inasmuch as propagation by bulbils or offsets very 

 rarely results in anything but multiplication of the parental 

 form on exact lines, it is clear that if we want to improve, 

 we must have recourse to the spore. In this connection, 

 perfectly barren ferns are very few compared with fertile 

 ones, and although spore production certainly diminishes 

 as frond dissection increases, and thus in the most plumose 

 forms is reduced to a minimum, as a rule careful inspection 

 reveals that spores occur here and there, even perhaps as 

 minute clusters of two or three sporangia, or spore pods, 

 which the naked eye can hardly detect. A single pod, 

 however, is capable of yielding some thirty or forty plants, 

 so that even an all but sterile fern produces quite enough 

 progeny for any amateur to deal with. In such cases our 

 own plan is to carefully cut off the pinnules bearing such 

 pods, and lay them back downwards on a glass slip, such 

 as is used for microscopic objects. Placing this a few 

 hours later under the microscope, the pods will be found to 

 have burst, and the spores will be scattered over the glass 

 in their vicinity. By doing this, the confidence is acquired 

 that the variety is really sown, and that with proper care a 

 crop may be expected. 



