70 FERN GROWING 



several months were kept in pots within a walled drying ground, 

 and ever since that time varieties of Scolopendriums have 

 kept appearing on neighbouring walls, where before there was 

 nothing but normal forms. One of these Scolopendriums 

 [Lentonense) has been found three-quarters of a mile off, no 

 doubt from spores carried by the wind from the original plant. 



We are not only entitled to ask why certain results are 

 produced from certain experiments, but also to accept the 

 most natural explanation. In the case in point, the production 

 of the four characters of four Fern parents on one and the 

 same seedling was obtained by mixing spores of the four 

 varieties ; not as a solitary instance, but repeated over and 

 over again for a number of years, the repetition giving 

 evidence of the same result, and, even when varying the 

 experiments in every possible manner, this fact remains un- 

 altered. May we not think the established law that only one 

 sperm acts on the same germ does not hold good with Ferns, 

 for if it did we could not obtain the combination of more 

 than the peculiarities of one male and one female. If we 

 consider the effect of the combination of four parents (now 

 proved in so large a number of instances), we must believe 

 the result can only have been from the fertilisation of the 

 ovum or ova on one and the same prothallus. There must 

 have been the influence of three sperms from three different 

 prothalli with one ovum ; or a sperm from three different 

 prothalli must have fertilised three different ova ; and these 

 being on the same prothallus, assimilation may have caused the 

 whole of these fruitful cells to fuse, as it were, the sperm 

 characters, and thus produce a plant having the forms of all 

 the sperms ; or, what is as likely, a number of sperms have 

 assisted in this impregnation. In the case of assimilation,* 

 the characters of the germ will predominate, because there 



* A term the author has adopted to denote the/«jz'«f of the inflorescence of the 

 sperms of two or more fertilised germs on the same prothallus. 



