Vegetable Productions. 87 



mere external characteristics. It appears that we 

 should say " fronds " and " spores/' because the 

 former are produced in a different manner from the 

 leaves of other plants, being rolled up in a crosier-like 

 form, which gradually unfolds, and the spores do not 

 by any means correspond to seeds, seeing that in their 

 nature they rather resemble buds; as in due time, 

 when placed on a damp surface, and exposed to suffi- 

 cient warmth, they enlarge by the addition of cells, 

 and produce singular structures somewhat agreeing in 

 nature with the stamens and pistils of flowering plants. 

 These curious facts, discovered in 1848, by Count 

 Suminski, are described with beautiful figures in the 

 work of Dr. Carpenter. We see the bud-like spore, 

 the elongating cells, the structures that have been 

 likened to stamens and pistils; and there are also 

 strange moving filaments, which may be likened to 

 pollen-grains ; but fern-seed itself appears to be even 

 more unattainable than it was considered in Shaks- 

 pere's time,* for there is indeed no such thing, 

 nothing which truly corresponds to the idea of a 

 seed, as we understand the term in speaking of most 

 other plants. 



Almost all ferns have their seed-vessels, or to 

 speak more precisely, their thecce, on the backs of the 



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



Henry the Fourth, Part I. Act II. " Fern-seed was supposed to 



have the power of rendering persons invisible. The seed of fern is 

 so small as to escape the sight ; to find it, therefore, was supposed 

 to require a magic operation ; and in the use, the seed was sup- 

 posed to communicate its own property. Note in "Illustrated 

 Shakspere," vol. iii. (Tyas.) 



