196 



MORPHOLOGY. 



146 



The easily- traced history of de- 

 velopment of the capsule (as I have 

 given it according to my observations 

 on Blechnum gracile) relieves me 

 from the necessity of wasting one word 

 in refuting the imaginary origin of 

 the capsule from a leaf rolled inward, 

 and which, of course, has been duly 

 derived from a fantastic imagination. 



Mohl* has refuted this and the other 

 view, that the sporophyll is formed 

 by the blending of a leaf and a twig ; 

 entering into the subject with more 

 profoundness of argument than such 

 unscientific sports of fancy, in my opi- 

 nion, merit, and, with his ever-manifest 

 acuteness of comprehension, has ap- 

 plied the results of his own excellent 

 investigations to develop the simplest 

 and most natural, and consequently 



also the only true, view of Fern fruits. The formal mania for discovering 

 antheridia in the Cryptogamia for a long time failed to find support in the 

 class of the Ferns ; for stomates and the groups of spiral cells in which the 

 spiral vessels of the leaf-nerves terminate, the indusium, and other parts, 

 although termed anthers, could not for any length of time be main- 

 tained to be such. Fortunately for those who delight in sporting with 

 words without affixing any definite ideas to them, a few glandular hairs 

 (cells, of which the last, which was spherical or ovate, contained some 

 gum and mucus) were found near the capsules in some specimens of 

 Ferns; they were pronounced to be anthers, and the discoverers rejoiced in 

 the self-satisfaction of having followed the course of science. Habeant 

 sibi ! I can corroborate the fact of there being glandular hairs in many 

 Ferns, and, indeed, on the very peduncle of the sporocarps, but they are 

 decidedly wanting in the case of a great many others. For my part, I am 

 surprised that no one has as yet insisted upon the presence of the organs 

 of sense, as eyes and ears, in plants, since they are possessed by animals ; 

 such an assumption would not be a bit more absurd than the mania of 

 insisting upon having anthers in the Cryptogamia, simply because they 

 are found in the Phanerogamia. 



We are indebted to Nagelif for the discovery of the antheridia. It 

 is very easy to confirm his assertion by direct observation (fig. 143.). 

 They do not differ essentially from those of Mosses and Liverworts. 



109. The stem of Ferns consists of a mass of parenchyma, tra- 

 versed by simultaneous vascular bundles (26.), and may, when 



* Mohl, Morphologische Betrachtungen iiber das Sporangium der mit Gefassen 

 versehenen Kryptogamen, Tubingen, 1837, p. 11. 



f See Zeitschrift fur wiss. Bot. von Schleiden und Nageli, vol. i. part i. p. 168. 

 (1844). 



146 Scolopendrium officinarum. A, The ripe capsule : a, the pedicle ; b, d, c, the ring ; 

 c, the place where the capsule is torn open. B, Part of the ring of a capsule that is 

 burst open : a, the side turned from the capsule. C : a, the spore ; 6, the same (after 

 the removal of the external membrane) with a cytoblast. 



