925 



Notice of ' Entwickelimgs-Geschichte der Farrnkrduter. Von J. 

 Grafen Leszczyc-Suminski.' Berlin, 1848. 



In the August number of the ' Phytologist ' (Phytol. iii. 613) we 

 announced the publication of this remarkable work, and gave an out- 

 line of the theory promulged by the author, reserving for a future 

 occasion a more complete and extended notice. The subject was 

 considered so interesting, that every contemporary journal which 

 could possibly bring Botany within the scope of its contents followed 

 in our wake, and before the close of the year we had articles all but 

 innumerable on Suminski's discoveries. The time has now arrived 

 for us to fulfil the promise we first held out, and to take a careful and 

 impartial review of a theory so important to science. We conceive, 

 however, that it will be desirable, as well as acceptable to our readers, to 

 trace the records of fern-reproduction ab initio, so that each successive 

 author may enjoy exactly that share in the ultimate conclusios to which 

 his labours have entitled him : we shall then give verbatim exactly 

 so much of Suminski's work as may be considered new to science; 

 next we purpose briefly to recapitulate the objections urged by 

 botanists, together with our view of those objections ; and, lastly, to 

 state the results of our personal investigation of the pro-embryo, 

 and to compare such results with those obtained by Suminski. 

 This portion of our observations must of course be accompanied 

 by illustrative outline figures. And here it may as well be observed, 

 that whereas Count Suminski professes to have confined his ob- 

 servations to the pro-embryo of a single species, — Pteris serrulata, — 

 ours have no such limit, our specimens having been selected solely from 

 their fitness for examination, and the species or even genus to which 

 they belong not having been considered a matter of importance. To 

 the general botanist this may appear a somewhat slovenly and careless 

 method of investigation ; but to those who have experienced the un- 

 certainty attending the raising of ferns from the sporules it will be 

 rather regarded as an advantage, seeing that the pro-embryo may, and 

 we believe does, afford characters for generic and specific distinction, 

 and that an error in nomenclature is likely to do more injury and 

 create more confusion than can arise from the absence of nomenclature. 



The reproductive organs of ferns have long obtained the notice of 

 botanists, but it is surprising to find how very meagre was the infoi*- 

 mation obtained respecting them. The ' Encyclopaedia Britannica,' 

 a work considered at the time as one of authority, and which obtained 



