34 FERN GROWING 



having a larger size and a greater crest : these plants give great 

 promise of a successful issue, though they are as yet only 

 infants.* Strength added in this way might develop a tri- 

 pinnate frond, so that the lobes of the pinnules should even 

 become stalked, crested, and more divided. 



" Investigationa such as these are not confined to Ferns ; 

 they extend to flowering plants, and a great future is before 

 the student who prosecutes these inquiries. Those who give 

 themselves up to scientific investigations cannot avoid receiving 

 adverse expressions from unbelievers ; but doubt may change 

 to belief, for sooner or later truth will assert itself. The 

 reasoning which at first seemed cloudy and obscure, may, by 

 the multiplication of a chain of evidence, clear away these 

 clouds, and then the sun, the emblem of truth, will shine 

 in all his glory." 



In the discussion on this paper. Dr. D. H. Scott, F.R.S., 

 of the Experimental Laboratory of the Royal Gardens, Kew, 

 said — 



" The most surprising statements in Mr. Lowe's interesting 

 paper related to the combination of the characters of several 

 varieties in a single individual in cases where the spores of 

 the varieties in question had been sown together. If the 

 results were really due to multiple hybridisation, it would 

 involve the fertilisation of an ovum by several spermatozoids, 

 each contributing somewhat of its own character to the 

 offspring. This supposition contradicted all that was directly 

 known as to fertilisation in Ferns, in which it had always 

 been found that only a single spermatozoid fused with the 

 ovum ; instances of multiple fertilisation in plants were rare. 

 It had been stated that in fucus more than one spermato- 

 zoid united with the ovum, but recent observations had 

 rendered this very doubtful. Mr. Lowe's explanations of 

 the facts could hardly be accepted by botanists until direct 



* More mature now, and the plants strong and largely capitate. 



