SOME PLANT GROUNDLINGS. 



97 



nary ferns, a spore-case is like a fireman's helmet. 

 The ridge or crest of the helmet in the spore-case is a 

 ring which, by its contraction, splits open the case, and 

 allows the little spores to escape and to fall into the soil. 



Now, were a spore a seed, each would grow up 

 directly into a fern. But instead of thus 

 ending the matter, we find each spore to 

 give origin to a leaf-like body, called the 

 prothallus. This roots itself, and then 

 produces in turn certain curious organs 

 not unlike the stamens and pistils of 

 higher plants. By the aid of these organs 

 of the prothallus, the young fern-body is 

 actually produced. It grows from the 

 green leaf that arose from the spore, and 

 when it has advanced in life, coiling up 

 its first frond like the top of the bishop's 

 crozier, the prothallus disappears by 

 withering away, or by becoming absorbed 

 in the young fern itself. Development 

 in the fern is therefore from the fern to 

 the spore, then to the prothallus, and from 

 the prothallus to the fern again. 



Now, in our fungi, much the same 

 course of events has to be chronicled in 

 respect of their development. The fungus 

 produces " spores," like the fern, and not 

 seeds. These spores grow upon special 

 filaments which shoot up from the surface 

 of the threads that we have seen to form 

 the essential part of every fungus. In Fein-frond: 

 some fungi the threads are separate and ^"* '*>. 

 distinct, and then the spores are set free into the air, 

 and help to form part and parcel of the great army of 



