1896.] ‘‘Natural History of Plants.”’ 23 
structure, though scarcely differing at all from the fruit rudiment must 
be considered as a fruit. After a short period of rest the embryo 
germinates and the new generation which gradually makes its appear- 
ance as stem, roots and fronds emerging from the embryo continues 
to receive its food-stuffs through the mediation of the prothallium.” 
Comment. Here is an amazing account of the regular de- 
velopment, from the syngamete, of the ordinary sporophytic 
fern. The conception of the spherical embryo ‘‘germinat- 
ing” is peculiarly gratuitous, nor is there the dormant period 
referred to. One might as well speak of the babe ‘‘germin- 
ating” after a dormant period and becoming a man. 
. The account of the Rhizocarpez and Selaginellaceze 
is badly confused. For example, speaking of the germination 
of microspores it is said that in Salvinia, Marsilia and Sela- 
ginella one or two cells are ‘‘pushed out through rents made 
here and there,” whereas as a matter of fact this does not oc- 
cur in any of the genera mentioned except Sa/vinia, nor is 
the phrase ‘‘rents here and there” at all definite enough. 
Pp. “The tissue produced from a macrospore in the Rhizo- 
carpee and Selaginelleze has been compared to the ovule as it occurs 
in the phanerogams.” 
And after a few comments on this surprising alleged ho- 
mology, Kerner adds: 
“But if it is made the basis of far-reaching speculations concerning 
the evolution of one group of plants from another, the descent of 
Phanerogams from cryptogams, ADs example, I must enter an emphatic 
& 
