CONDITIONS FOR THE GERMINATION OF THE 
SPORES OF BRYOPHYTES AND PTERIDOPHYTES. 
FRED DE Forest HEALD. 
(WITH PLATE Iv) 
I. INTRODUCTION. 
THE investigations upon the effect of light on the germination 
of fern and moss spores have led to opposite and contradictory 
results, According to Borodin, Schmidt and others, the failure 
of fern spores to germinate in the dark is experimentally demon- 
strated, while Géppert and Schelting arrived at exactly opposite 
conclusions. Leitgeb has shown the necessity of light for the 
germination of liverwort spores, and Milde succeeded in germinat- 
ing Equisetum spores in the dark. Up to this time no system- 
atic work on the germination of moss spores in light and darkness 
has been carried out. In order to clear up this existing confu- 
sion and extend our knowledge in regard to the conditions for 
the germination of moss spores, the present investigation was 
undertaken, 
Before proceeding with the results of my own experiments 
however, I will treat a little more in detail the investigations 
bearing upon this subject, which have been hitherto published. 
II. HISTORICAL. 
Theearly botanists were in no sense of the word physiologists, 
and so from the time when the spores of mosses were first 
observed and compared to the seeds of flowering plants nearly 
to the present time, their germination has been treated almost 
exclusively from the morphological point of view. A historical 
summary of the works on the germination of the spores of 
eho and Hepatice, up to 1884, is brought together by Lind- 
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