743 



regular flowers with ten stamens arranged in two rows. The fruits 

 presented a foliar character. 



* Report on the Reproduction of the higher Cryptogaraia ; by Mr. 

 A. Henfrey.' This was an instalment of a report, called for by the 

 Association last year, on the recent progress of vegetable physiology, 

 from Dr. Lindley, Dr. Lankester, and Mr. Henfrey. The greater part 

 of this report was taken up by a summary of the facts at present on 

 record respecting the occurrence of the organs termed antheridia and 

 pistillidia in all the higher families of cryptogamic plants — viz., the 

 mosses, liverworts, ferns, horse-tails, club-mosses, and Rhizocarpeag. 

 After discussing the various debated points, the report concluded : — 

 " Perhaps the time has hardly come for us to arrive at any conclusion 

 on these points. The phenomena in the ferns and Equisetaceae, as 

 well as in the Rhizocarpese, Lycopodiacese, and Isoetacese less strik- 

 ingly, seem to present a series of conditions analogous to those which 

 have been described under the name of ' alternations of generation ' 

 in the animal kingdom ; and seeing the resemblance which the pistil- 

 lidia of the mosses bear to the ' ovules' of the other families, we can 

 hardly help extending the same views to them, in which case we shall 

 have the remarkable phenomenon of a compound organism, in which a 

 new individual, forming a second generation developed after a process 

 of fertilization, remains attached originally to its parent, from which 

 it differs totally in all anatomical and physiological characters. It is 

 almost needless to advert to the essential difference between such a 

 case and that of the occurrence of flower-buds and leaf-buds upon the 

 same stem in the Phanerogamia, as parts of a single plant, yet possess- 

 ing a certain amount of independent vitality. These are produced 

 from each other by simple extension, by a process of gemmation ; 

 while the moss-capsule, if the sexual theory be correct, is the result of 

 a true reproductive process. Moreover, we have the analogy to the 

 increase by gemmation in the innovations by which the leafy stems 

 of the mosses are multiplied. In conclusion, it is remarked, that these 

 anomalous conditions lose their remarkable character to a great ex- 

 tent if we refuse to accept the evidence of sexuality which is brought 

 forward in the report. If the structures are all products of mere 

 extension or gemmation, the analogies which have been supposed to 

 exist between them and the organs of flowering plants all fall to the 

 ground. But, believing that the hypothesis of sexuality is based on 

 solid grounds, the reporter is by no means inclined to allow the diffi- 

 culty of the explanation of these relations to be urged as a valid argu- 

 ment against their existence. He trusts that the present report may 



