STRUCTURE.] PILICALS. 97 



that place, which holds a middle rank between Gymnogramma 

 distans and chrysophylla, species which are cultivated in the 

 same garden, and had been frequently standing next each 

 other. The frond of this intermediate fern is doubly pinnate, 

 decreasing towards the upper part ; the shape of the pinnae 

 and pinnate divisions holds a middle rank between the shape 

 of these parts in its progenitors. The white powder of G. 

 distans is scattered about at the base of the fronds and the 

 pinnae, where they are attached to the footstalk, and the 

 yellow powder of G. chrysophylla, but rather paler, is seen 

 on other parts. M. Bernhardi considers these forms as real 

 hybrids ; he recommends particular attention to the fructi- 

 fication of the fern in these species of Gymnogramma ; he 

 thinks that if his assertion respecting the male fructifying 

 parts of these plants should be confirmed, the phenomenon 

 may be more readily explained, than if other parts are re- 

 garded as anthers. M. B. rejects the opinion too hastily, 

 that the species of ferns, of which such intermediate forms 

 have been observed, may be modifications of the same species ; 

 indeed, these species are very similar, and ferns are by no 

 means so constant in their forms as the author thinks ; on the 

 contrary, they change very frequently, and much more so than 

 other plants. It is often the case, that we see long and short, 

 pointed and blunt pinnae, on one and the same frond of the 

 larger Polypodiaceae." He, therefore, rejects the idea of 

 imaginary hybrids proving that ferns have sexes ; and, with 

 regard to his own supposed anthers, he observes, that, " If any 

 parts are to be regarded as anthers, they evidently are those 

 which Blume first of all definitely indicated, and which are 

 represented in the same part of the Icon. Select. Anatomica 

 Botanicce, tab. 3, fig. 1 5 ; they certainly have the greatest 

 analogy with anthers, although I by no means attribute to 

 them the same functions as are possessed by the anthers of 

 phanerogamous plants. For we need only reflect upon the 

 eye of the mole, which certainly cannot see with it, to be 

 convinced that nature sometimes also arranges things for no 

 particular purpose. Provided even that these anthers of the 

 fern, or the parts assumed to be such by Bernhardi, really 

 possessed the function of impregnation, I yet cannot see how 

 VOL. IT. H 



