any light upon the present whereabouts (or rather 

 existence) of this beautiful Fern no one else can ; but I 

 quite agree with him that the existing variety of LastveOr 

 pseudo mas percristata apospora raised by Mr. Cropper would 

 appear to be practically identical in form, if not in origin, 

 I think, however, it is somewhat more foliose and more 

 markedly percristate, and in any case it is undoubtedly 

 the most delicately beautiful of all the Male Ferns. 

 Despite its constitutional weakness, which seems incurable, 

 I have managed to keep it for a good number of years 

 after raising it by apospory from a pinna sent me by 

 Dr. Stansfield. This I pegged down close to the soil in 

 a small pan and covered it with glass, when at once the 

 apices generally began to produce prothalli in great 

 abundance ; and in point of fact, a single pinnule will in 

 time fill a small pot, the prothalli themselves appearing 

 to be proliferous, producing others from their edges and 

 spreading marchantia-like over the soil. These prothalli 

 are mostly slender, but some assume the normal heart 

 shape ; they appear to be devoid of the faculty of sexual 

 reproduction, and only produce a new generation by 

 the formation of asexual buds (apogamy), as has been 

 found to be generally the case with the assumed parent, 

 L.p. m. cvistata. Despite the aposporous origin of these 

 plants, which in the majority of aposporously produced ones 

 in other species are defective in make, they all come 

 perfectly true to type, due possibly to their asexual and 

 consequently more direct origin as simple buds. Another 

 result of this singular, if not unique, combination of 

 abnormal reproductive phenomena, is that the young 

 plants are produced with quite unique rapidity. Some 

 material which I supplied to Prof. J. B. Farmer, F.R.S., 

 for the microscopic study of apospory, are recorded by 

 him, and by Miss Digby who co-operated with him, as 

 having shewn visible plants in three weeks from the 

 layering of the pinnules on prepared soil, a period which 



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