64 FERN GROWING 



several germs be crossed on the same prothallus ; but to this 

 it was said that if all the others were crossed, this would come 

 to nothing, as only one germ would produce fronds. The author 

 had seen reason to doubt this fact, and was at the time en- 

 deavouring to obtain proofs. The author had taken various- 

 sized {i.e., various-aged) prothalli, and cut them into two, three, 

 and four pieces, and had succeeded in growing them. Some 

 had previously received impregnation and some had not; of 

 two examples, one with three divisions, out of a batch of 

 spores that included a mixture of eight different varieties of the 

 Lady Fern, and another of three varieties of the Hart's-tongue, 

 fronds were produced on all the three divisions of the one 

 prothallus {i.e., of the Lady Fern), and on two of the Hart's- 

 tongue. In both cases the varieties were identically the same, 

 and in the case of the Lady Fern the evidence was over- 

 whelming ; there had been produced from this one prothallus 

 three plants (before said to be an impossibility), not only 

 exactly alike, but a new variety, differing in an extraordinary 

 manner from all others. The plants had two kinds of fronds, 

 and in the two fronds could be distinctly seen characters of 

 six of the varieties that had been sown together, part of them 

 on the one frond and part on the other, the most marked 

 feature of distinction being that in one case the frond was 

 acuminate and in the other truncate. These three plants are 

 now, and have been for some time, fully grown specimens ; 

 they were all' produced from the divisions of the one pro- 

 thallus, and thus have not only proved that more than one 

 plant can be raised from the same prothallus, i.e., more than 

 one cell can become fertile, but that either a number of 

 sperms assisted in the impregnation of three cells, or that 

 one or more different sperms had impregnated several cells, 

 and that by assimilation the effect was spread over the whole 

 prothallus. If only a single sperm in each cell, then at least 

 five cells had been impregnated by a sperm from each of the 



