THE UNCOILING FRONDS. 15 



ters on the bracken and the lady-fern. 

 As a sort of extension of the " Doc- 

 trine of Signatures " it was assumed 

 that since the seed is invisible, it 

 would render its pos- 

 sessor invisible also. It 

 was supposed to have 

 many other virtues, and 

 could be obtained only 

 by the exercise of the 

 greatest care and endurance. An 

 old legend accounts for the fern's 

 lack of flowers by asserting that 

 all ferns bore them until the 

 Nativity. In honour of that 

 event, the plants that were mixed 

 with the straw in the stable put 

 forth their flowers. The ferns, 

 alone, did not, and were therefore 

 condemned for ever afterward FLOWERING FERN. 

 to be flowerless. 



Even the early botanists could not understand a proc- 

 ess which in such a mysterious way produced new plants 

 without the intervention of a flower. As late as 1828, 

 Sir J. E. Smith wrote of the idea that ferns do not bear 

 seeds, as follows : " I see no advantage in applying a 

 new denomination to the seeds of these and other cryp- 

 togamous plants. Hedwig gave the Greek name spora 

 to the seeds of mosses because he conceived them to 

 differ in their structure and germination in some indef- 

 inite manner from seeds in general. The most malicious 

 rival of his immortal fame could not have imagined any- 

 thing more subversive of that fame or of his luminous 



