FERN GROWING 67 



To set the question at rest with regard to previous 

 crossings having anything to do with these muhiple com- 

 plications, the author made a number of experiments by sowing 

 the spores of these multiple crosses separately. The examples 

 which the author now quotes give us everything that we 

 require. They are varieties of Hart's-tongue Ferns, viz. : — 

 I. Darwiniana, the combination of four varieties. 

 , 2. Quadriparens, the combination of four varieties. 

 3. A variety having the murications on the under-side of 

 the fronds, whilst the upper surface is smooth. (This is a 

 new departure in character, being the reverse of the muricate 

 forms hitherto known, and has moreover elongated triangular 

 fronds. ) 



The Darwiniana seedlings are all Darwiniana, those from 

 quadriparens all quadriparens, whilst those from the third 

 variety, having its murications underneath, are also exact 

 copies of their parent. 



Many other experiments made at the same time might 

 be quoted, but they • would simply be repetitions of these 

 confirmations. 



So great a consensus of proof is, or ought to be, difficult 

 to confute. It has been attained by the work of thirty-five 

 years of experiments, repeated over and over again, taken with 

 the greatest care, and with the object of establishing certain 

 facts that revealed themselves from the first. 



There is no more difficulty now in acknowledging multiple 

 crossing than there was only a short time ago in denying that 

 Ferns could be crossed. 



Certain beliefs have been held as regards the reproduction 

 of plants, and because the present discoveries are more or 

 less opposed to those views, the discoveries themselves are 

 received with doubt ; but why there should not be a vast 

 difference in the reproduction of plants that have two lives, 

 the prothalloid and the frond life, it is difficult to understand. 



