1 66 Miscellaneous. 



Parthenogenesis in Ferns. 



An interesting paper by Dr. William G. Farlow, late Assistant in 

 the Botanical Department at Harvard University, and at the time a 

 student in the laboratory of Professor De Bary, of Strasburg, entitled 

 'An asexual growth from the Prothallus of Pteris serrulata" was read 

 in January last at a meeting of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences, and is just printed in its ' Proceedings.' A fern, as is well 

 known, comes to fructification and produces spores without any ferti- 

 lization. The spores in germinating produce a liverwort-like 

 structure, the prothallus, on which the two kinds of sexual organs 

 are developed ; the fertilization of a cell in the one by a spermatozoid 

 from the other results in the development and growth of the former 

 into a bud, and so into a fern-plant. Now Dr. Farlow has discovered, 

 in a sowing of the spores of the common Pteris serrulata, prothalli 

 which were developing fern-plantlets from their substance quite 

 apart from any archegonium, starting in a different way by a direct 

 outgrowth from the prothallus, beginning with a scalariform duct, 

 but producing plantlets thus far undistinguishable from those which 

 arise from an archegonium through fertilization. The paper is 

 illustrated by figures, which show the earlier stages and the difference 

 between this asexual outgrowth and the ordinary development. 



Dr. Farlow, confining himself strictly to the facts of the case and 

 their direct interpretation, does not use the word parthenogenesis. 

 But the case seems to be substantially analogous to that of partheno- 

 genesis in phsenogamous plants, the few cases of which that have 

 been probably, if not unequivocally, made out are much fortified by 

 the present discovery. If it be demurred that the case is one of bud- 

 growth and therefore not of the nature of parthenogenesis proper, the 

 reply is that it comes from a parthenogenetic spore, which here 

 develops plants without the sexual fertilization of that class of plants. 

 The conclusion, if the facts hold good, is that sexual fertilization, 

 however necessary, is not absolutely necessary in every generation 

 of plants, somewhat as cross-fertilization, however necessary in the 

 long run, is generally unnecessary in every generation ; only the 

 rule in the former is far more strict. — Asa Gray in SUliman's 

 American Journal, April 1874. 



On New-Zealand Whales. 



The Museum at Auckland has what Dr. Hector believes to be 

 the foetus or very young of Neobalcena marginata ; it is only 2\ feet 

 in length, and has the baleen perfect. All the characters agree 

 exactly with the previous and larger specimen of that whale. It 

 was called a calf of a right whale, the old one being described as of 

 an enormous size ! 



Dr. Haast has received a fresh and complete animal of Doliehodon, 

 perhaps D. Layardi ; and he has also an Epiodon, the skeleton of 

 which agrees with Burmeister's Epiodon australis in every part but 

 the sternum ; and in that it only differs slightly. Is it different from 

 E. chathamensis. — J. E. Gray. 



