412 [Proc. B.N.P.O., 



are growing. In ferns the same prothallus usually bears both 

 kinds of sexual organs. The antheridia and archegonia. produce 

 an embryo, which eventually grows up tO' be a new fern plant. 

 In ferns then we have a perfectly sharp alternation of genera- 

 tions. The fern plant is the sexual generation or sporophyte, 

 producing the sporangia, and ultimately the spores. The 

 prothallus is the sexual generation, producing the antheridia 

 and archegonia in which the sexual cells are developed. 



Ferns were a puzzle to- the ancients and the early botan- 

 ists, who could not understand how they were propagated. 

 The spores, or as they would suppose them seeds, were so 

 minute as to be invisible. Young plants were seen growing 

 around the parent plants. No wonder if the spores were in- 

 visible, it came to be believed the possessor of them would also 

 be invisible ; and very great ceremonies were performed by 

 those who' went to gather them. Shakespeare, in Henry IV., 

 makes Gadshill exclaim, when being advised tO' take heed lest 

 he should be caught, "We have the receipt of fern seed ; we 

 walk invisible." This would almost infer that ferns and their 

 peculiarities were taken notice of even then, or such a passage 

 would not have been intelligible tO' a mixed audience. When 

 the microscope came into use, the spores could be observed, 

 and were found tO' be of different forms, and recorded in 1669. 

 In 1 715 it is mentioned that fern plants were raised from 

 these invisible seeds at the Oxford Botanical Garden. How- 

 ever, little was known until Count Simenski, a Polish botanist, 

 discovered one of the sexual organs in 1844, and in 1846 the 

 other. To elucidate his researches, he published that mar- 

 vellous set of illustrations, self-explanatory, about that time, of 

 the first full demonstration of the normal life-history of ferns, 

 the final link of which he discovered in 1846. I have the 

 pleasure of showing some of these illustrations, which have been 

 made into slides. 



The discovery of the mode of fructification opened a new 

 leaf in botany. Some of the Fern Hunters, who had found 

 good wild finds, began to sow spores, and in order to economise 

 space, sowed various varieties in the same pan, and when they 



