22 HISTORY OF BRITISH FERNS. 



It is from the under side of the thickened point or 

 axis of development above mentioned, where it comes in 

 contact with the moistened soil, that the roots are protruded, 

 The stem, or caudex, whatever its character, originates in 

 this primary axis of development. 



In the first stages of development, then, the young seed- 

 ling Ferns (that is, Perns raised from the spores) assume the 

 appearance of a Liverwort, forming a green, semi-transparent, 

 crust-like patch on the surface of the soil the unilateral 

 primordial scale referred to above. 



In these minute and almost invisible atoms, no less than 

 in the more ponderous materials which surround us, we dis- 

 cover the impress of Almighty and Creative power. They 

 teem with life ! No commixture of elementary matter, no 

 electric shock guided by human agency, can originate that. 

 Truly the hand that made them is Divine ! 



The requisite conditions to induce the germination of the 

 spores of Ferns, in addition to the supply of the degree of heat 

 proper for the species which produced them, is simply contact 

 with a continually damp surface. Diffused light is favourable 

 to the young growth as soon as it begins to form, but is appa- 

 rently not necessary as a means of exciting it. It matters 

 little in what way the principal condition above-mentioned 



