S: 



It is really only at this stage that the structure of a fern 

 begins to resemble that of a {lowering plant in so far that 

 it now assumes the two fundamental forms of subterrestrial 

 root and superterrestrial foliage. As regards the roots they 

 may be at once dismissed with the remark that their 

 formations and functions are practically alike in both 

 classes, but as regards the foliage, both structurally and 

 functionally there is a wide difference between the frond 

 of a fern and the leaf of a flowering plant, however 

 similar they may, in some cases, appear to be. The frond 

 of a fern normally is a contrivance to carry the spores, 

 and in this capacity plays an individual part in the repro- 

 ductive system of the plant ; the leaf of a flowering plant 

 can only do this when it has been so far metamorphosed 

 as to become a flower, and even then the spore phase of 

 existence never appears, and the scale stage is lost in the 

 intricacy of the floral arrangements of interacting stamens 

 and stigma, the latter being fertilized by the pollen grains 

 borne by the former, precisely as under the tiny fern scale 

 or prothallus, the antherozoids fertilize the embryo seed at 

 the base of the archegonium. The function of the travelling 

 spore is fulfilled in the travelling seed so far as the spreading 

 of the species is concerned. A fern frond in addition to 

 this spore-bearing capacity has the faculty of growth by 

 assimilation of the carbonic acid in the air through the 

 action of its chlorophyll stimulated by light, and in this 

 resembles plant foliage generally as well as in the resultant 

 stimulation of root-growth and the consequent extension 

 and strengthening of the entire plant. C. T. D. 



[To be continued.) 



FERNS AND WEEVILS. 



As it is in the winter time that the insidious ravages of 

 the weevil grub at the roots, as distinct from the summer 

 attacks of the weevil beetle on the foliage, are most to be 



