THE FERN BULLETIN 



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for himself seems never to have entered the heads of 

 these makers of new varieties. Since the forms in 

 question are ali mere variations of Nephrolepis exal- 

 tata giving names to them can be looked upon as a 

 harmless diversion. Nevertheless it seems desirable 

 to keep track of these names and we therefore add to 

 the list previously published the names N. Pruess- 

 neri (N. ex alt at a f. Prucssncri) and N. Galvcstoni 

 (N. E. f. Galvcstoni) . In the language of the country 

 newspaper "let the good work go on." 



Pollination and Fertilization. — It is singular 

 how long a misconception in science can linger on in 

 out-of-the-way parts of the world. One would think 

 that by this time the essential difference between pol- 

 lination and fertilization might be understood, but 

 thousands of Darwin's countrymen continue to con- 

 fuse the two. In a recent article on reproduction in 

 ferns by an English author the statement is made that 

 the sperms of ferns enter the archegonia and "fertilize 

 the seed at their base precisely in th same way as pollen 

 fertilizes the seed of flowering plants.' 1 Since pollen 

 in no case ever "fertilizes a seed" in any kind of a 

 plant we fail to see where the "precisely" comes in. 

 What pollen really does when it falls upon a stigma is 

 to germinate producing a structure that is homologous 

 with the structure formed by a spore in ferns ; in fact, 

 a pollen grain is a spore, exactly like the spores of 

 ferns. The structure produced by the pollen grain pro- 

 duces sperms in its turn and these fertilize an egg 

 which has been developed in the embryo seed. Pollina- 

 tion is the term used to indicate the application of 

 pollen to the stigma while fertilization denotes the 

 union of an egg and a sperm. Pollen grain and 



