FERN BREEDING OB} 
FERN BREEDING. 
By Cuas. T. Drurry, V.M.H., F.L.S. 
Ir is a somewhat curious fact that, despite the recognised value of ferns 
as decorative foliage plants, the great bulk of forms accepted as improve- 
ments of exotic species have originated as chance seedlings, while few 
or no attempts are made to arrive at such improvements by systematic 
selective culture. This is doubtless mainiy due to the great difference 
existing between spore-bearing and seed-bearing plants in theit mode of 
reproduction. In the seed-bearer it is, as it were, an open-and-above-board 
operation, easily comprehensible, ard, as a rule, easily controlled. There 
is the visible pollen and the equally visible stigma and attached seed- 
vessel, and with usually simple precautions against chance fertilisation, 
it is easy to bring together the potencies of two different strains, while 
Nature rewards the matrimonial agent very frequently by combining 
these potencies into fresh harmonies on novel and valuable lines. With 
the fern, however, it is otherwise, and the old botanists, baffled in their 
attempts to solve the mysteries of its reproduction, dubbed it a cryptogam 
or secret marrier. Later on, but still only about sixty years ago, the 
mystery was solved, and it was found that ferns produced what are to all 
intents and purposes flowers of two sexes and seeds which were fertilised 
by their conjunction and then behaved as seeds do generally, pushing 
forth roots and leaves in the ordinary way. ‘These flowers, however, were 
so minute that only a keen eye could detect them, and they were, more- 
over, produced, not upon the fern fronds which represent the ferns as we 
know them, but upon the under side of a tiny green Marchantia-like 
scale, produced by the spore, and firmly attached to the soil by a 
multitude of rootlets. 
Furthermore, it was found that, despite the immense diversity of ferns 
in form, habit, and size, the flowering stage was practically identical 
throughout, so that it was impossible to identify the fern until after the 
fertilisation of the seed and the appearance of the fern itself. This 
difficulty could of course be obviated to some extent by careful collection 
and isolation of the gathered spores, but with every care it was found 
that other spores shed from neighbouring ferns upon the fronds selected 
were almost unexcludable. In time it was demonstrated that practically 
the only way to hybridise or cross was to sow the two selected kinds 
somewhat thickly together and trust to chance for cross-fertilisation. 
Such cross-fertilisation was then accepted as effected, when some of the 
seedlings unmistakably displayed the joint characters of both forms 
sown. In this way a number of successful crosses have been effected, 
and experience has demonstrated that the chances of cross-unions are 
increased if, as soon as the prothalli or little scales have reached full 
size, they are flooded with tepid water for a few minutes. ‘The fern-seeds 
are fertilised by means of antherozoids, tiny ciliated organisms endowed 
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