188 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOGIRTY. 
the result of my own practical experience in the matter, and I shall 
keep it as free as possible from scientific language. The first matter 
to be discussed is “ What is a spore ?” Spores are the little brown 
seed-like substances which are found in variously shaped clusters 
on the back of fern fronds, either covered up at some time of their 
existence by a thin membrane, or else always naked. Those 
who are not botanists would call them seeds, but they are not seeds in 
the sense in which we generally use the word. An ordinary flowering 
plant produces flowers which possess stamens and pistils either in the 
same or different flowers. On the stamens is a yellow cellular sub- 
stance called pollen, which, when transferred to the pistil, fertilizes 
the seed and causes it to mature. When the seed is ripe, if it is 
planted in the ground, it will at once develope into a plant like that 
which produced it. Now ferns are not flowering plants, and spores 
are not seeds which have been fertilized by the action of pollen or in 
any similar way, and will not at once produce a plant like that 
from which they were gathered. What the process is I will now 
describe. The spore, in shape, is somewhat angular, and consists of 
two coats, an outer and an inner. When germination commences, 
the inner coat is protruded as an elongated tube, which bursts, and 
by cell division forms the prothallium which, in appearance, resem- 
bles a small lichen of a brilliant emerald green colour. When the 
prothallium first appears, it is only a bright green speck, but it will 
sometimes grow to a size which equals a section through the middle 
ofan ordinary sized sweet-pea seed. From the prothallium root 
hairs are produced, and also, on the under surface two small bodies, 
or cells, called antheridia and archegonia. The antheridia repre- 
sent the stamens in a flowering plant, and are cells in which are 
developed spiral filaments. The archegonia fill the place of the 
pistil and ovary in a flowering plant ; in the centre is a canal leading 
to the germ cell in which is a small corpuscle. When the proper 
time has come, the antheridia burst, and the spiral filaments pene- 
trate the germ cell and come in contact with the small corpuscle 
therein, which is thus fertilized and forms the primordial 
cell, from which the first frond springs. Thus the growth of a fern 
from a spore is much more complicated than the growth of a plant 
from a seed, Thus mifch science is necessary in order to enable us 
to understand what is going on under our eyes, though all that can 
be seen by the naked eye is the growth of the prothallium and the 
root hairs, and the final appearance of the frond, ‘To pass on now to 
