342 



THE CHOSSTNG OF FETfNS. 



perhaps for too long a time — to give attention to the con- 

 clusions of those who had carefully studied the subject, and 

 thus the acceptance of the truth was retarded. It was not 

 until a foreign fern or two had done what many British ferns 

 had long been known to have done, that the serious attention 

 of botanists was drawn to this subject ; and I believe I am 

 correct in saying that the first authoritative recognition of 

 the fact was contained in a letter to Mr. E. J. Lowe from 

 Sir Joseph Hooker about the year 1884, in which the latter 

 used these words : — " The hybridization of ferns is now an 

 accepted fact." But in the general ignorance formerly pre- 

 vailing with regard to the reproduction of cryptogamic 

 plants, it seemed altogether preposterous that ferns could 

 possibly cross. No bee or fly hail over been susj)ected of 

 visiting a fern or moss with any such intention or result, 

 and enough was known of the structure of a fern to preclude 

 the idea of any external agency in fertilization ; enough was 

 known of the history of a forn from its hi-st loaf until the 

 completion of what appeared to be its final act, viz., the 

 scattering of its spores, to negative the idea that the spore 

 was the result of sexual action; it was known not to bo a 

 seed, but beyond that, I believe, nothing was generally known 

 than that by some mysterious transformation, apparently 

 not altogether unlike the threefold changes in insect life, 

 the fern produced the spore, the spore developed into tlio 

 prothallus, and from the prothallus came the fern. 



TriE liKi'KootKrnvE Ougans ob' Feuns. 



It was not until Naogoli, Suminski, Hoffmeistor, and other 

 continental botanists had raised the veil which had so long 

 hung over the secrets of the reproduction of ferns and other 

 kindred forms, that people were able to recognise that, how- 

 ever different in the process, the principle involved in the 



