493 Mr. W. K. Bridgman on Monstrosities among Ferns. 



strongly marked characteristic of the variety, and some far more 

 crested and crisped than the parent. 



The spores from the remaining part of the leaf were sown in 

 another pan, at the same time, and have produced an equally 

 abundant crop. There were not a dozen plants of the same cha- 

 racter with the preceding ; and, until the leaves were several inches 

 long, with the exception of here and there a twin leaf, there were 

 no extei'nal characters in the hulk of them to render their parentage 

 reeognizahle. A very large proportion of them were discarded as 

 normal ; and the only peculiarity at present shown among the 

 remaining ones, the leaves of which average from 6 to 9 or 

 10 inches in length, and from 1^ to 2^ inches in breadth, is in 

 a slightly sinuous margin, an occasional division of the apex 

 into two or more lobes, and a disposition to become someM'hat 

 ragged — and this by no means general, but only one or two 

 leaves on a plant. 



But as these were planted out, not singly, but in little tufts, 

 a number of plants grew together, thus giving the stronger ones 

 the opportunity of outgrowing their weaker companions : this 

 they speedily did ; and whenever any of the previous type, which 

 had been left to take their chance, were allowed to remain, they 

 became weakly and made no way, while the others grew with 

 great rapidity, showing the tendency by "selection," in this 

 instance, to be strongly in favour of retrogression. 



Similar experiments with other varieties and species have been 

 attended with corresponding results. The tufted end of the 

 variety " Crista Galli " of the same species {Scolopendrium vulgare) 

 produced many hundreds of plants, all, with scarcely an excep- 

 tion, equally complex with the original, or more so ; and, what is 

 more remarkable, the parent plant was upwards of two years old 

 before it began to devclope its peculiar character, while the pro- 

 geny raised from it were all prominently characteristic in the 

 first leaves. 



With such forms as Nephrodium molle corymhiferum, Lastraa 

 filix mas cristata, Seolopendriu7n marginatum, &c., where the 

 entire frond has become deformed and the whole of the venation 

 abnormal, the plants raised from spores procured from any part 

 of the leaf reproduce the variety with little or no variation. 

 Out of some thousands of Filix-mas-cristata seedlings, only one 

 reverted to the normal form, and two others closely approach 

 the angustata of Sim, all the remainder being identical with the 

 parent. 



