1903.] on the Origin of Seed-hearing Plants. 347 



expect that one by one, many of the as yet unowned Palseozoic seeds 

 will be traced to their Fern-like possessors. 



Further positive indications of this are already presenting them- 

 selves. For example, there is a specimen in the British Museum 

 collection, showing a cast of a branched rachis accompanied by a 

 multitude of ribbed seeds, many of which are in clear connection 

 with the rachis itself. At one place we see a leajflet of Sphenopteris 

 ohtusiloha, a well-known Coal-Measure " Fern," and everything indi- 

 cates that we have here the fertile, seed-bearing rachis of that 

 species. There are other specimens which point in the same direc- 

 tion, and now that the eyes of collectors are opened to the possibility 

 of their so-called "Fern-fronds" bearing seeds — an idea which 

 before seemed too improbable to be entertained — more of such 

 specimens will doubtless find their way into our museums. 



The present position, then, of our question is this. Some, pro- 

 bably many, of the Fern-like plants of Palgeozoic age bore seeds, of 

 the same general structure as those of the Cycads among living 

 Gymnosperms. The plants in question were not merely Fern-lihe ; 

 their anatomical structure proves them to have had so much in 

 common with true Ferns that there can be no doubt of their affinity 

 with them. In fact, apart from the newly discovered seeds, these 

 plants for the most part show a balance of characters on the Fern 

 side. 



The evidence thus points unmistakeably to the conclusion that the 

 Cycadophyta — the most primitive of the seed-plants — sprang from 

 the Fern stock. Thus the origin of the great mass of Cycadean 

 forms which overspread the world during Mesozoic epoch is ac- 

 counted for : they were doubtless derived from the more primitive 

 Cycad-ferns of the preceding Palaeozoic age, and through them from 

 some early Filicinean ancestry. The first divergence from this 

 original cryptogamic stock must have occurred very far back ; the 

 seeds of Lyginodendron and other Carboniferous seeds referable to 

 the Cycadofilices, are, as we have seen, already highly organised, 

 and the stages of their evolution from the cryptogamic sporangium 

 are still to be discovered. 



The origin of Seed-plants from the Fern phylum will probably 

 prove to hold good for other groups besides the Cycadophyta. The 

 great Palaeozoic family Cordaiteae combines the characters of Cycads 

 and Coniferae, and at the same time shares certain of those anatomical 

 features which first betrayed the true nature of the Cycadofilices. 

 There is thus a strong presumption that the Cycadophyta, the 

 Cordaiteae, and the Coniferae themselves had a common origin, or 

 at least that they all sprang, directly or indirectly, from the great 

 plexus of modified Ferns which played so large a part in Palaeozoic 

 vegetation. 



Hence, so far as the gymnospermous Seed-plants are concerned, 

 we are led to the conclusion that they were derived, at a very early 



