STRUCTURE.] FLOWERLESS PLANTS. 85 



On Lycopodineae / have no observations, and on Filices 

 merely a few surmises to offer. I believe that every species 

 will be found to present a male apparatus, which, I think, 

 was first pointed out by the great Hedwig, and subsequently 

 by M. Link. I have lately alluded to it without having any 

 previous knowledge of the labours of the two above-mentioned 

 botanists. The fertilisation of Ferns I believe to be inter- 

 preted by Anthoceros, .provided my observations on that 

 genus be found to be correct. The only difficulty exists in the 

 anthers not appearing, in some cases at least, to dehisce; 

 but I beseech botanists not to cast away the opinion of the 

 very important nature of these bodies on a solitary objection ; 

 they will remember that until very lately an absorptive pro- 

 cess was generally adopted to explain the fecundation of 

 Asclepiadese and Orchideae, and even adhered to, when a 

 beautiful train of reasoning and observation had reconciled 

 them, in all the essential points, to the ordinary plan. 



With regard to Marsilea, I have to remark that the obser- 

 vations of M. Fabre, as given by M. Dunal (Ann. Sc. Nat., 

 N.S., t. vii. p. 221), scarcely agree in one particular with 

 some observations on a Marsilea, I believe M. quadrifolia, 

 made by myself at Bamo, on the Irrawaddi, in 1837. In 

 the species I then examined I found the organs to be of two 

 distinct kinds attached to the veins of the involucre. Of 

 these two kinds, one only is subsequently subjected to the 

 usual ternary or quaternary division, from which result 

 bodies altogether similar to the acknowledged spore of other 

 Acotyledonous families. The other body has no analogy, in 

 my opinion, to the acotyledonous form of anther. InM.Fabrei, 

 however, the females have been represented as having curious 

 analogical resemblances to the Phaenogamic pistillum ; and 

 what is, perhaps, more extraordinary, the anthers are said to 

 be simple sacs, containing granules and molecules, and appa- 

 rently are similar to the pollen of certain Naiades, Balano- 

 phoreae, Rafflesiaceae, &c. 



In Isoetes the males of authors are nothing but modifications 

 of the spore ; and in I. capsularis, Roxb., they seem to be 

 merely temporary modifications : they have, in fact, so pre- 

 cisely a common development that it is scarcely allowable to 



