596 New Publications. 



the rainy season ; this however did not abate his zeal. His collection 

 for our Museum has considerably increased ; for he announces 70 

 Mammalia, more than 500 Birds, Reptiles, Fishes, 1,100 Coleoptera, 

 200 Lepidoptera, and a hundred Conchylia, with several other remark- 

 able objects, plants, and fossils. The assistance sent will enable M. 

 Tschudy to embark with his rich booty, and return to his native coun- 

 try. — Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, June 19. 



ift*i0t*Uatteou0* 



Of the Flower or Fruit of Ferns. 



At a recent meeting of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin 

 (March 19, 1840), Prof. Link read a paper, in continuation of his previ- 

 ous memoirs on the structure of Ferns, treating of the flower or fruit. 

 The sorus is in general situated on a receptacle which, when roundish, 

 consists entirely of short spiral vessels, so called, vermicoid bodies, 

 similar to the thickened extremity of the leaf nerves, which might 

 therefore be regarded as abortive recepticles. In the elongated re- 

 ceptacle, straight spiral vessels are met with. A spiral vessel never 

 extends to the fruit. The parts which Sprengel years ago, Blume and 

 Presl at present consider to be male organs of fructification and indis- 

 tinctly figured, have been more accurately examined by Prof. Link, and 

 illustrated by drawings. They are long hollow filaments, separated by 

 septa into articulations, generally simple, rarely ramified; the last 

 articulation is thicker, and filled with a delicate granular mass. It may 

 also at times be observed that this mass is exuded at the last articula- 

 tion, and surrounds this as a crust. These parts are frequently longer 

 than the capsules, and are easily distinguished from the young capsules. 

 It is certainly probable that they are the stamina of ferns, and Prof. 

 Link has indeed found them, after frequent search, in most of the ferns 

 which he subjected to microscopical examination. The germination of 

 ferns is simple ; the shell of the seed bursts regularly or irregularly, out 

 of which the embryo grows forth in a foliaceous expansion, which 

 subsequently first forms a bud, whence the plant proceeds in the form 

 which it retains. This mode of germination presents, therefore, a 

 similarity to that of Monocotyledons, only that here the evolution 

 of the embryo is a state, and one of rapid transition. 



