U2 FERNS THE ANCESTORS OF FLOWERS 



D and E). Many varieties and " sports " of cultivated plants 

 show clearly enough that the stamens are leaves, and that 

 the segments of the central or terminal part, the " pistil," 

 are also leaves carpellary leaves or " carpels," as they are 

 called. Double-flowers are sports in which all the staminal, 

 or male, and all the carpels, or female structures assume 

 the form of leaves like the coloured circlet called the 

 petals. But sometimes " sports " go further and all take 

 on the colour and structure of green foliage leaves, as is 

 the case in the green rose, of which an example exists 

 in Kew Gardens. In this way it becomes evident that 

 foliage leaves and the close-set whorls of the parts of the 

 flower are all of the same nature, namely, leaves, or 

 " foliar appendages." An examination of the parts of the 

 flower of the finest of English flowers, the common water 

 lily, will convince any doubter that this is true. 



The modified tip of the frond of the flowering fern is in 

 its nature the same thing as a flower, and would only need 

 to be made a little more compact, and to have its spore- 

 bearing leaflets set in whorls surrounded by others devoid 

 of spores, in order to fully justify us in calling it a 

 " flower." 



But what about the spores and the two generations, the 

 spore-bearer and the egg-and sperm-bearer of the fern ? 

 How are they represented in the flowering plant ? It is 

 true there is no visible second generation in the flowering 

 plant. But this is not because it is not there ; it is because 

 it is so small and so much altered that it has taken a great 

 deal of time and ingenuity for botanists to find it out. 

 Among ferns there are some which have a very minute 

 sexual generation or prothallus, and the spores of one part 

 may drop on to the fronds of another part and germinate 

 there and give rise to the sexual prothallus without falling 

 to the ground, so that little ferns are seen growing on 

 the surface of the bigger fronds. You may see such ferns 



