PHOPAGATIOX BY SEEDS, 



409 



subject from Mr. France's interesting work on British Ferns : — The re- 

 production of ferns is a subject involved in much obscurity. Hedwig, 

 Bernhardi, and others have proposed theories to explain this intricate 

 matter, without success. That the ferns have no visible flower, is evident, 

 but that they have some apparatus analogous to stamens and anthers, is 

 maintained by many of our first botanists. This opinion has evidently 

 been adopted merely to get rid of the doctrine of spontaneous impregna- 

 tion, which, however unsatisfactory, must not wholly be discarded until 

 something more plausible be substituted. At present nothing whatever has 

 been discovered of the origin of the germinating principle in any of the 

 Cryptogamic orders, nor the laws which regulate the developement and 

 arrangement of their spores. As regards our present tribe, so keen has 

 been the search, that every part of the plant has been subjected to the 

 minutest investigation, not only the thecae, their ring, and their cover, 

 but the spiral vessels of the rachis, the stomata upon their cuticle, and 

 the glands which are sometimes found attending upon them. 



Seeds or Spores. — The small, round, rough grains contained in the 

 thecae, considered formerly as gemmae or buds, are now known as seeds, 

 but differing from common seeds in many respects. They have no coty- 

 ledons, but are a mass of cellular substance. Instead of sending up a 

 plumule, and downwards a radicle, from fixed points, they grow in- 

 differently from any part of their smface, that most exposed to Hght 

 shooting into the future frond, while the deeper point propels the root. 

 Owing to these differences the seeds have been called, not only here, but 

 in all the tribes of Cryptogamic vegetables, spores (or sporules) rather 

 than seeds. They retain their vitahty for many years, and those brushed 

 off from the dried plants of an herbarium will grow long after the speci- 

 mens have been gathered, coming up first with a smaU crown or bud, 

 from which soon issues a single leaf, or imperfect frond, not differing in 

 texture from the future growth, though, as before stated, much less 

 ramified." 



Mr. Uemj Shepherd, of the Liverpool Botanical Garden, has succeeded 

 most successfully in propagating these plants by seeds. An account of 

 his method will be found pubhshed at length in the Transactiom of the 

 Horticultural Society, from which we extract the following, as being quite 

 sufficient to explain his practice : — Having provided a common garden 

 pot, four and a half inches deep, and three and a half wide, let the bottom 

 part, to the height of one inch, be fiUed with fragments of broken pots 

 by way of drain. Over these should be spread a stratum of such soil as is 

 commonly used for potting greenhouse plants, of the depth of two inches ; 



