in the Reproduction of Monstrosities among Ferns. 491 



many of the plants so obtained revert to the ordinary normal 

 character of the species. 



The venation in these monstrosities being equally inconstant 

 and variable in its arrangement — differing considerably in the 

 same leaf in the amount of its departure from the normal direc- 

 tion — and the spore-cases being so intimately connected with it 

 by springing directly from the back of the vein, these experi- 

 ments were undertaken with a view to discover, if possible, how 

 far the former circumstance might be dependent upon the con- 

 dition of the veins and position of the receptacle from which the 

 respective spores had been obtained. 



In the first instance, a leaf from the multifid variety of the 

 common HartVtongue (Scolopendrium vulgare, var. multifidum) 

 had been procured, selecting one of the most distorted, and the 

 spores from it collected indiscriminately and sown. The plants 

 coming from these, to the extent of many hundreds, presented 

 every grade of variation, from the simple ligulate with a single 

 acute apex up to the complex form of the parent, and beyond, 

 or, as fern-fanciers express it, " greatly improving the sport," 

 and this not in one direction only, but resulting in the produc- 

 tion of three distinct varieties. The direction of the veins in 

 the lower portion of the leaf from which the spores had been 

 taken was all but normal, some parts entirely so, upon which 

 several of the sori had been placed. But towards the upper and 

 above the middle portion of the leaf, the veins, losing their 

 regularity and parallelism, became somewhat zigzag and reticu- 

 late, the indusium only partially developed, the sori smaller, 

 more numerous, and nearer to the external margin. In the ex- 

 treme upper or multifid and crisped terminal expansion, the 

 mid- vein became broken up into a number of nearly equal divi- 

 sions, and these again dividing and subdividing into a reticulate 

 mass of veins and venules. Instead of the regularly formed sori, 

 the spore-cases were distributed about in patches, without the 

 slightest trace of an indusium, and attached by their pedicels to 

 the back of some of the larger bundles of veins, and also, in the 

 axils, in scattered masses, the indusium having become perfectly 

 obsolete. 



Another variety, the " laceratum" of Moore ('Nature-printed 

 Ferns/ 8vo edition, vol. ii. pi. xcii.), was now selected, having the 

 two characters of venation separate and distinct. The sori from 

 all the reticulate portions of the leaf were carefully scraped off, 

 and the spores sown in baked peat in a pan by themselves. The 

 plants resulting from these (which were pricked out from a seed- 

 pan 4 inches in diameter, where they had come up as thick as 

 they could grow) contained not a single plant which had not the 



