926 



a circulation positively enormous, has touched briefly and obscurely 

 on the subject: it contains the following vague and unsatisfactory 

 passage, under the head^ilices, in the article Botany. 



"The flowers, whatever be their nature, are, in the greater number 

 of genera, fastened, and, as it were, glued, to the back of the leaves ; 

 in others, they are supported on a stem which rises above the leaves, 

 but in some they are supported on a flower-stalk, as already men- 

 tioned. The stamina are placed apart from the seed-bud in a genus 

 termed by Mr. Adanson palma Jilix ; in the other ferns, where we 

 have been able to discover the stamina, they are found within the 

 same covers with the seed-bud." — iii. 470. Here, then, is an absolute 

 mention of ascertained male and female organs ; but it is impossible 

 to form the least idea of what the writer really intends to convey ;" 

 indeed, the subject is scarcely worth an inquiry, seeing that we cannot 

 suppose the author of so loose and vague a definition to have dis- 

 vered any organs that have escaped the more careful investigation of 

 botanists during the fifty years that have elapsed since the publication 

 of the volumes in question. 



Subsequent publications show that the subject of reproduction has 

 also obtained the notice of cultivators. The following passage, pub- 

 lished almost simultaneously with the foregoing, will be found at page 

 93 of the second volume of the ' Transactions of the Linnean Society 

 of London.' 



" Account of the Germination and Raising of Ferns from the Seed, 

 by Mr. John Lindsay, Surgeon in Jamaica. — To enable me to ob- 

 serve the germination of the seeds with ease and certainty, I mixed 

 some of the powder with some of the mould it was to be sown in, and 

 by the help of the microscope was soon able to distinguish readily 

 the different parts of the powder or fructification from the particles of 

 mould in which it was sown. Having collected the dust of some of 

 those ferns which, from the number of their young ones rising every- 

 where, promised to grow readily, and sown it in a pot, &c. ***** 

 I observed no alteration till about the 12th day after sowing, when 

 many of the small seeds had put on a greenish colour, and some were 

 pushing out their little germ, like a small protuberance, the rudiment 

 of a new fern. This little protuberance gradually enlarged, and they 

 had acquired small roots, and the remains of the little seeds were still 

 discernible where the roots of the infant plant commenced. Although 

 the young ferns were now very conspicuous by the microscope, the 

 naked eye could see nothing but a green appearance on the surface 

 of the mould, as if it were covered with some very small moss : this 



