Observations on the Germination of Ferns. 339 



liferum, Asplenium viviparum, &c. In the latter case, however, 

 several fronds are developed before any root appears, but in the for- 

 mer the first gyrate frond is almost uniformly preceded by a root. 



The production of the important body above alluded to, is the ul- 

 timate end and effort of the primary frond, and as it is the point 

 at which gyrate developement commences, it may be regarded in 

 the light of an incipient caudex. When it is matured, according to 

 some one of the various forms which it assumes in different species, 

 a root is protruded from one side of it, and soon after a small gyrate 

 frond emerges from its summit, which when developed occupies the 

 edge of the cellular knot, having the base of its stipe placed direct- 

 ly over the base of the radicle. This last immediately descends 

 into the earth, while the former rising from under the primary frond 

 opens out into a small simple or lobed leaflet. When this is ma- 

 tured, another is sent out, and the same process is repeated, a new 

 root being in general added with each successive frond. The cel- 

 lular mass in the meantime accumulates, and is gradually convert- 

 ed into a central caudex. The primary frond having completed its 

 office withers and decays, while the characters of the perfect fern 

 become more and more apparent, as one frond succeeds to another. 

 I have now traced the progress of this primary state of vegeta- 

 tion from its origin to the point where it passes into the mature 

 plant, and in the magnified representations, some assistance will be 

 given towards forming an idea of the actual appearance which it 

 assumes at different periods. 



It will be evident from what has been said, that the reproductive 

 organs here have no affinity whatever with those existing in Phse- 

 nogamous plants. There is here no seed in the'proper sense of the 

 word, no cotyledon, and no embryo. 



The likeness which exists between the germination of ferns and 

 endogenous plants is one merely of analogy, for there is no real re- 

 semblance in their mode of reproduction. In the one case the em- 

 bryo is already formed within the seed ; in, the other, as it should ap- 

 pear, a single cellule with a proper integument gives origin, cell by 

 cell, to an expansion of cellular tissue bearing no resemblance to the 

 perfect plant, which at length produces from a knot at a particular 

 point, a frond and root bearing a strong resemblance to an endogenous 

 plant when germinating. The real relation then of the germina- 

 tion to what takes place in endogenous plants appears to be, not to 

 the germination of the seed, but to the propagation from the edges or 

 disc, of the leaves from the cellular tissue, as in Baryophyllum caly- 

 cinum, Malaxis paludosa, and a species of Ornithogalum observed 



