THE LANaUAGE OF BOTANISTS. 7 



common for full-grown shoots to detach themselves from the parent-plant and 

 act as brood-bodies. 



Fruits of all degrees of complexity are also found. They are sometimes single 

 cells, sometimes groups of cells, and sometimes complete plants in miniature. 

 Usually the fruit — or at least the most important part of it which contains the 

 fertilized ovum or the embryo produced thereby — becomes detached, when ripe, 

 from the parent-plant; but, in many groups of the vegetable kingdom, in Ferns, 

 Mosses, Lichens, and Florideae, for example, the fruit remains at its place of origin 

 and preserves its connection with the mother-plant whilst itself developing into 

 a new generation, which, however, does not produce fruits but spores. When 

 asexual and sexual reproduction take place alternately in a definite manner, we 

 speak of an Alternation of Generations. Hitherto the subjects of fruit-formation 

 and of the alternation of generations in their relation to the History of Plants have 

 remained unrecognized and unelucidated. In one of the following sections of this 

 volume an attempt will be made to solve this great mystery. 



