FERTILIZATION, DEVELOPMENT, AND 

 FRUCTIFICATION OF FERNS 



UNTIL very recently the development of ferns, 

 their methods of fertilization and fructification have 

 been shrouded in mystery. At one period it was 

 believed that "fern-seed," as the fern-spores were 

 called, possessed various miraculous powers. These 

 were touched upon frequently by the early poets. 

 In Shakespeare's " Henry IV " Gadshill exclaims: 



"We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible." 

 He is met with the rejoinder: 



" Nay, I think rather you are more beholden to the night than to 

 fern-seed, for your walking invisible." 



One of Ben Jonson's characters expresses the 

 same idea in much the same words: 



" I had no medicine, sir, to walk invisible, 

 No fern-seed in my pocket." 



In Butler's "Hudibras" reference is made to the 

 anxieties we needlessly create for ourselves : 



" That spring like fern, that infant weed, 

 Equivocally without seed, 

 And have no possible foundation 

 But merely in th' imagination." 



