Exogenous Seeds and Fern Spores. oL>7 



pre-begotten and pre-destined, before that solitary individual 

 has made its appearance or de facto, is — and that one plant 

 a Fern. 



Sumniski and Mercklin affirm, and men believe them, that 

 on the prothallium, before the fern has any being, two bodies 

 exist, male and female ; that the males, enclosed in their own 

 proper envelope, live in cells, which from time to time burst, 

 setting free their occupants, which are individuals with a club- 

 head, like a spermatozoa, a spiral tail, and six cilia at the head ; 

 that the females are small pyramids of cells, having at the 

 bases the germinal spot, at the apex an opening ; that the males 

 enter the pyramids, and passing down a straight tube, effect 

 the conjunction required ; that from this spot the future fern 

 grows, already pre-destined and pre-impregnated for the years 

 or ages of its life. 



The story is too romantic, the compromise between animal 

 and vegetable impregnation too obvious to be real ; besides, what 

 are the cilia and curved tail for, impediments rather than aids 

 to sroing down a straight tube, and cilia are for swimming but 

 where has the Leander to swim to his Hero ? Moreover, these 

 so-called males and females are not a few, but many, at the 

 base of the prothallium, to the right and left of the centre line 

 — how strange that never more than one female becomes im- 

 pregnated, and that only one fern results from so much gene- 

 rative matter, and on one prothallium. Again, how strange 

 that this fern which does result, occurs in the middle line 

 invariably, and never to the sides, although females are as 

 many at the sides as middle. I have carefully observed these 

 bodies, which are clearly to a demonstration nothing but roots 

 and stomata in all stages of development ; that by the pressure 

 • of the covering-glass the contents of the young ones may 

 escape, but that they have tails and whiskers' is pure imagina- 

 tion. These same bodies may be seen clearly in the radix from 

 the very outset, and have nothing whatever to do with impreg- 

 nation ; at a future time I will illustrate this more fully. For 

 the present, however, ferns are still Cryptogamia, and their 

 conjunction to be found out; but we have one aid furnished us 

 by this inquiry, a spore is a seed, a seed came from an adult 

 plant, nor was it formed on a cotyledon-placenta. We must 

 look, then, to the adult fern for its two elements, and there 

 we find evidence enough for demonstration. 



I have omitted to note the form of the fern ovule : if what 

 is affirmed be true, the cotyledon must be curved on the germ. 

 The foramen and hilum corresponding, we shall, therefore, 

 have a camptotropal ovule. In another paper, I hope to give 

 sufficient evidence of the impregnation of adult ferns, and that 

 occurring: where the fruit is found. 



