14 
of the substances which form the subject of my communication 
this evening, may be held in some measure to justify me in 
bringing under your notice a matter, which, though not included 
within the range of Natural History, yet possesses in itself claims 
upon the attention and sympathy of the enquiring mind, which 
can hardly fail to meet with due appreciation amongst the Mem- 
bers of the Cotteswold Club. 
W. VY. G. 
Notes on British Ferns. 
By James Buckman, F.G.S., F.L.S., Professor of Geology 
and Botany, in the Royal Agricultural College. 
A slight acquaintance with plants will shew us that while there 
are very many that ornament the earth with those showy or curi- 
ous parts which we term flowers, there are others which do not 
flower, or at least in the same way, and the differences of these 
two groups may be summed up in the following manner : 
1st, Flowering Plants. Bearing leaves whose modifications form 
other leaves which are called “floral envelopes”’ (Calyx and Corolla); 
further change makes (Stamens and Pistils) the latter of which 
contains the germ and produces seed by its maturation. 
2nd, Non-Hlowering Plants, in which is no Calyx or Corolla, 
and whose sexual organs, if they possess them, are concealed. 
In the first or higher class of plants detached cells are produced 
by the Stamen, and known as Pollen ; the contents of the Pollen 
cell are received into a reservoir of the germ, now full of a saccharine 
formative fluid, upon which they live and propagate new cells, which 
become united into different shapes, and covered with varied en- 
velopes, and so compounded they separate from the parent plant, 
and in this state are called seeds, the plumule of which consists of 
young leaves. Seeds, therefore, may be viewed as separable buds, 
protected in various ways, and wrapped up in the most convenient 
form. 
In the Non-flowering plants there are also separable cells deve- 
loped, but here they are not sown in a sugary pabulum like pollen, 
but, when separated from the plant, they appear to have the power 
of reproducing other cells, each of which, in the lower tribes, 
becomes an independent plant, whilst in the higher the cells do 
not separate, but make up organs by aggregation, until a distinct 
organ is set apart for the production of the separable cell, which, 
