20 



absolutely alone as an exemplification of what the Lady 

 Fern can do if given a chance, while at least a dozen 

 others were distinct and varied greatly in density and mode 

 of cutting. In the other two cases the "tiny smear" 

 commencement, the primary germs so to speak of the 

 new acquisitions, was even more insignificant in appear- 

 ance than were the starting points of the Lady Ferns. 

 There the spore heaps on the original frond were abundant 

 and provided with an indusium on normal lines, and it 

 was only necessary to lay a tiny piece so provided on the 

 glass slip to obtain an abundant, though insignificant 

 looking, provision of spores for sowing. With both 

 Baldwinii and P. ac. pulcherrimnm, however, the lens had 

 to be used to detect the spore capsules, which only 

 appeared singly as minute black spots, the spores in which 

 when gathered and shed on the glass slip were absolutely 

 imperceptible without the lens. Here then one sowed the 

 practically invisible and the " wonder " which inspires this 

 article, viz. the attribution of huge specimens four or five 

 feet across to such minute and unpromising beginnings is 

 in these cases even enhanced. In the first and third cases 

 cited there is the additional and most striking marvel of 

 all, that incorporated within those tiny spores there must 

 have been as many different potencies or new structural 

 impulses as were eventually developed in the plants they 

 yielded, and all this w^ithout any crossing being concerned 

 to account for these alterations of plan and adoption of 

 new and original characters. Curiously enough, sowings 

 of the " superbum " parent have been made by others 

 more than once, with the like results of tasselled progeny, 

 but in every case the defects prevailed throughout the 



brood and rendered it worthless. 



C. T. D. 



