104 



In the matter of numbers of potentially reproductive 

 bodies, we may add that each of the millions of spores 

 when it germinates and produces the little green scale, or 

 prothallus, engenders on the underside of this a consider- 

 able number of *' antheridia," which resemble small 

 pimples, and each of which contains many tiny fertilizing 

 organisms, termed " antherozoids," each one of which is 

 endowed with what we may term paternal potencies. Of 

 these, then, there must be at least some hundreds to serve 

 as a further multiplying factor in the scheme of reproduction, 

 though the chance of being of service in their case must be 

 at least divided by the fact that the embryo seeds of the 

 maternal organs are limited as a rule to some five or six. 

 Taking these immense figures, and comparing them with 

 the extremely few cases where a spore normally succeeds 

 in producing a plant, it is clear that regarding the 

 antherozoid as a bachelor seeking a mate, his marital 

 chance must be infinitesimal indeed. C. T. D. 



VANDALISTIC BOTANISTS/:^ 



Although the horticultural world is indebted to the travel- 

 ling botanist for countless additions to our cultivated plants 

 which they have discovered abroad and introduced into 

 this country, there is, unfortunately, another side to the 

 matter, or rather another class of botanists who appear to 

 consider the enrichment of the herbarium, the hortus siccus, 

 as the only legitimate goal of their acquisitions, and think 

 that they have done their duty and achieved a triumph once 

 the rare and perhaps unique plant has been uprooted, pro- 

 perly dried, and recorded. In my now long experience 

 several instances of this kind have come to my notice, and 

 the record of a particularly glaring case lies before me as I 

 write. Since the principle only is attacked neither name of 

 finder nor locality is given, but only the facts. In the 

 United States, where that beautiful fern Adiantiun pedatiim 



* By permission of the Gardeners' Chronicle. 



