[From HULI.EIIN OF THE TORREY BcTANlCAL ClUB, 45: 39I-397. II O 1918.] 



Regeneration in Phegopteris polypodioides* 



Elizabeth Wuist Brown 

 (with three text figures) 



Introduction 



The fact that plants are able to reproduce lost parts was 

 known long before it was discovered that animals possessed this 

 same power. It was natural that the first experimental investi- 

 gation on regeneration in plants should have been carried on with 

 the higher plants as it was a common practise to propagate many 

 plants by means of cuttings. However, the study of regeneration 

 has since been extended to include not only the lower groups of 

 plants, such as the algae, fungi, liverworts, mosses and ferns, but 

 also many groups of animals. This has resulted in the accumu- 

 lation of a large amount of evidence regarding the possibilities of 

 regeneration by most groups of organisms. 



Experimental evidence has also indicated that the regenerative 

 power of some plants is much greater in earlier than later life, 

 while in others this power is lost completely in later life. 



Goebel (2, pp. 196-203), experimenting with ferns, found that 

 the primary leaves of the young sporophytes of some ferns, cither 

 while attached to the sporophyte or cut ofT and placed under 

 moist conditions, were able to regenerate new fern plants or 

 prothallia or intermediate forms between leaves and prothallia. 

 Here the regenerative power seemed confined to the primary 



* Contribution from the Osfcorn Botanical Laboratory. 



391 



