82 FERN GROWING 



altogether, at least a million spores were sown to produce 

 less than thirty plants of this hybrid, or, roughly, one in four 

 thousand, and this is all but sterility. 



These twenty to thirty children of the hybrid are also 

 copiously soriferous, and they differ inasmuch as their spores 

 germinate freely. 



EXPERIMENT NO. IV. 



This is of interest, as it convinced Mr. Clapham, in 1879, 

 that it was an undoubted proof that Ferns could be crossed. 

 He had expressed himself up to this time as unconvinced, 

 although he had seen many of the crosses claimed by the 

 author from time to time for nearly twenty years. 



In 1875 two Lady Ferns, VictoricB and proteoides, were 

 sown together ; both are cruciate, Victorice having narrow lax 

 crested pinnee, whilst proteoides has bold short dense uncrested 

 pinnae, unequal in length, some projecting far beyond the others. 



In 1879 the seedlings had become mature, showing a 

 complete gradation, having Victorice at the one extreme and 

 proteoides at the other. 



Mr. Clapham saw fronds from twenty-seven of the seed- 

 lings. There was not a single seedling in the whole batch 

 that was identical either with Victories or with proteoides. 

 There were plants that had two -thirds more of the character 

 of Victories than of proteoides, others with those characters 

 reversed, and part where the characters were about equally 

 divided. There were some with only a trace of Victorice, and 

 others that were a near approach to proteoides. 



Now had any one sperm impregnated a single germ, 

 a third of the plants would have been a copy of Victorice, 

 a third that of proteoides, and a third having a character 

 midway between the two. There could not have been a 

 gradual series of changes : either a greater or less number 



