HOFMEISTER'S WORK 197 



describes as ovules without envelopes consisting of a papilla 

 (the neck) which becomes perforated, giving the spermatozoid 

 access to the embryo-sac within. His figures of the process of 

 fertilisation are extremely interesting as they show how com- 

 pletely he was dominated by the theory of Schleiden to which 

 allusion has already been made. The head of the sperm is 

 represented as entering the "embryo-sac," and there becoming 

 encysted to form the embryo just as the tip of the pollen tube 

 was supposed to do in flowering plants. The further develop- 

 ment of the embryo and its various organs are traced and 

 figured, however, in the most admirable way. At the conclusion 

 of his paper Suminski states that in view of the presence of 

 male organs and ovules, and the occurrence of fertilisation, the 

 cryptogamy of ferns does not exist in a physiological sense, and 

 ceases to have any validity as a peculiar character. A remark 

 which he follows up by the statement that ferns must on the 

 existing classification be referred to the Monocotyledons. 



In certain respects no doubt Suminski's paper is fantastic 

 more especially the circumstantial details given of the process of 

 fertilisation. But, however we may criticise his work the credit 

 belongs to Suminski of showing (i) that sexual organs are 

 borne on the prothallus, (2) that the embryo fern plant is pro- 

 duced as the result of fertilisation. Unlike Nageli, to Suminski 

 came the happy inspiration of looking for the female organs in 

 the position where common sense indicated they ought to be 

 found. 



Suminski's paper instantly aroused universal interest, and 

 the whole of his assertions were at first categorically denied by 

 the German botanist Wigand. 



We may now trace Henfrey's attitude to Suminski's work. 



His first notice occurs in the body of a review of Lindley's 

 ^'Introduction" in the first volume of his Botanical Gazette, and 

 shows him to have been profoundly sceptical, if not con- 

 temptuous, of the occurrence of fertilisation in the prothallus 

 of the fern. His words are "this (i.e. Suminski's discovery) 

 appears to have little but originality to render it worthy of 

 notice." That appeared in February 1849. 



Writing at greater length of Suminski's work in the Annals 



