THE LIFE OF A FERN. 



IS 7 



same time the knob which crowns the seed-vessel puts forth a 

 thick and gummy ooze. The stamens are just long enough for 

 their heads to rise a little above this knob, upon which the 

 pollen, when escaping as I have stated, falls in great quantity, 

 and is there held fast. 



Each grain then begins to swell, and to sprout (as the Rev. 

 J. G. Wood has it) something like potatoes in a cellar. All 

 the sprouts, however, pierce the knob, and push downwards 

 until they reach the seed-germs underneath. Each sprout is a 

 tube of extreme minuteness, and when it reaches a germ, 

 attaches itself thereto, and, through the channel so formed, the 

 fluid is drawn out of the pollen-grain and absorbed by the 

 embryo seed. Fertilization is thus effected, and the growth 

 and development of the germ proceeds until it becomes a seed 

 fully able, when planted, to reproduce a tulip. 



FERN SPORES. 



In ferns, the spores ripen and are ready for dispersion and 

 partial growth without any process of the kind. But, in tnith, 

 fertilization is as necessary to the continuance of ferns as to 

 the perpetuation of other plants. The main difference lies in 

 this : that the means of fertilization, and the real germs of 

 new plants, are produced from the spores after they begin to 

 grow. 



When a spore falls upon a proper place for its development, 



