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ordinarily would not suffice to perfect the prothallus 

 produced by a spore still less for the subsequent sexual 

 action. It is obvious from the above and from Dr. 

 Stansfield's remarks that the Fern must be grown under 

 glass ; given this, however, I have found little difficulty in 

 keeping it alive, and have fronds about a foot high in my 

 best specimen. In view, therefore, of its easy propagation 

 as described, its lease of life should not be a short one, 

 like that of its predecessors, especially as we have now a 

 larger number of British Fern lovers to take an interest 

 in it and study its simple needs. C.T.D. 



N.B. — It will be noted that I have named this fern as 

 one of the ** pseudo mas " section rather than " filix mas," 

 which I think is justifiable by its evergreen character, etc. 



THE REPRODUCTIVE CELL. 



Although in the '* Gazette " we rarely enter otherwise 

 than superficially into the biological aspects of Fern life, 

 preferring to deal with the variational phenomena and the 

 collection and culture of those Ferns in which these are 

 exhibited on the most striking or most beautiful lines, a 

 word now and again in the deeper direction may not be 

 amiss. Most of our readers know already that all organic, 

 i.e. living things, whether plants or animals, not only start 

 life in the shape of a microscopic little bag containing a corre- 

 spondingly minute quantity of somewhat viscous liquid, that 

 is, as a cell. Furthermore, all the subsequent growths which 

 eventually form the perfect individual are formed by cells 

 which are themselves the progeny, as it were, of the 

 original one which was endowed at the outset with the 

 power of splitting up into other cells. These later cells, 

 apparently spontaneously, but really by the guidance of 

 the parental influences originally present in the first one, 

 and subsequently transmitted to the others, proceed upon 

 a definite plan to reproduce, as a rule, the parental form 



