FERN PROPAGATION AND CULTURE 25 



most definite character, and the one best fitted to that end. Since, 

 however, the description of each species we deal with will embody 

 this, we may dismiss the subject here. One very remarkable fact 

 in connection with these spores is their enormous numbers; on 

 a fair-sized Fern, a Lady Fern, the annual crop may be by actual 

 computation over one thousand millions, and even in the smaller 

 species hundreds of thousands are concerned. We mention these 

 figures because in spore sowing there is a valuable lesson to be 

 drawn from them, and that is the absurdity of the amateur sowing, 

 as he is apt to do, too thickly. To collect the spores is easy ; the 

 best time to sow is as soon as they are ripe, say in June or July. 

 Ripeness is indicated by a deep brown or almost black colour in 

 most species, but in Osmunda they are a dark olive-green, and in 

 Polypodium vulgare a bright orange-yellow. If a small portion of 

 a frond be detached and laid in a dry room on glazed paper or, as 

 we prefer, on a glass slip which enables examination under a low- 

 power microscope, in a few hours the spore pods (sporangia, Fig. 2) 

 burst, and the spores may be collectively seen as a fine powder, 

 and under the lens aforesaid will be distinguished as more or less 

 definitely oval bodies, bearing in some species small ridges or 

 projections. These bodies will probably cover the field of view, 

 and will be mingled with the remains of the exploded capsules. 

 Slightly breathing on the glass, immediately followed by a smart 

 puff, will eliminate most of this debris, and leave the spores adhering 

 to the glass, and clear of rubbish. Obviously, with plants which 

 produce spores by the million, such spores must be terribly handi- 

 capped somehow, or the world would be overrun by them, and in this 

 case the handicap is the ^minuteness and delicacy of the initial 

 reproductive operations. Worms, insects, fungi, mosses, heavy 

 rain, etc., etc., are all liable to upset them, and some of these 

 adverse factors will do the same with our cultures unless we forestall 

 them. Our own plan is, therefore, this. We take a small pot or 

 pan, put in the usual crocks for drainage, and fill it nearly full of 

 good fern compost, loam, leaf mould, and coarse silver sand 

 (2, 2, 1) ; we press this flat and sprinkle some crumbs of loam or 

 crushed flower pot over the surface, on which we then place a piece 

 of paper to prevent disturbance, and thoroughly saturate the 

 soil with boiling water until the pan is too hot to hold. All inimical 

 worms, germs, or spores are thus killed, and hence, when the 

 soil is cold, and the spores scattered very thinly and evenly over 

 the surface, they have a fair field, and we may fully expect that 

 all will develop. We finally cover the pot or pan with a glass slip, 

 stand it in a saucer in a well-lighted place, but out of sunshine, 

 until in time, a few weeks, the green scales described elsewhere cover 

 the soil. No watering overhead should be afforded, a little kept 

 in the saucer will suffice. If not too thickly sown, a month or so 

 more will show the tiny fronds emerging to the light, and the crop 



