80 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
grandfather. So far the resemblance is complete; but 
note the important difference. In the mosses the “plant,” 
the thing we know as moss, is the sexual generation, the 
“oophyte,” as it is called, which has a double set of 
reproductive cells. The generation which produces the 
spores, the “sporophyte,’? is comparatively insignificant. 
In the ferns this is reversed. The plant, as we know 
it, is the sporophyte, and you must often have noticed 
the brown spore-cases, looking like the eggs of some 
butterfly or moth, upon the back of the fronds. The 
generation before it, the generation which comes direct 
from the spore and is provided with sexual organs, is 
small and inconspicuous. It is, in fact, comparatively 
a modern discovery, nor is this surprising when one hears 
that it is rarely more than half an inch in diameter, and 
clings closely to the surface of the soil, or even burrows 
underground. 
To get a clear idea of the case let us take the life 
history of a common fern, and follow its course from 
its first appearance as a spore. The commonest fern in 
England is probably the bracken; so common is it that 
popular opinion in some parts refuses to regard it as a 
fern at all, and much ignorant mockery is bestowed on 
anyone who calls it a fern in such parts. Nevertheless, 
a fern it is, and an excellent type of fern life in most 
respects. This distinction it has, that it is so hardy that, 
while flourishing exceedingly in a moist and shady wood, 
it can also hold its own with success on the sloping hill- 
side or the open heath, when most ferns would be routed 
by the dryness and the exposure. Its commonness makes 
it all the better suited for our purpose, for you can check 
the accuracy of my account with very little trouble. 
Imagine our spore comfortably fallen upon some rotting 
