450 



REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. 



one of which grumous filaments projected ; these appeared to com- 

 municate with the mass in the terminal cell, which like that in all 

 the others, is congealed ; but it assumes a different and very undefined 

 form. 



People may object and say, why were not more met with opened ? 

 This is no objection, because it is obvious that a spherical body may 

 be opened in part of its surface, and yet unless this portion happens 

 to be on the edge as it were of the sphere, it may escape detection with 

 a microscope of poor penetration. 



In this the ramenta are confined, or nearly so, to the under surface 

 of the fronds. Most occupy that which is called the costa. In this 

 the first change as in Adiantum is in the definition of the margin. But 

 this point I have not paid much attention to, as with my present 

 means here, it would be absurd to attempt proving how the fecunda- 

 tion takes place ; all that I can attempt is, to ascertain from structure 

 and analogy, the male nature of these curious bodies. 



See Plate B for the various sketches.* 



The next genus examined, is perhaps the instance in which these 

 ramenta have the strongest resemblance to ordinary simple hairs, 

 both in their young, when they represent succulent, tinged, grumous 

 molecular- containing hairs, and in the old, when they represent long, 

 flattened, coriaceous hairs, still there is abundant evidence to prove 

 that, however different these bodies are in appearance from those 

 of Cryptogamma, that they undergo the same changes, excepting 

 perhaps as to dehiscence. We have a tendency to fuscous colouring, 

 a tendency to the aggregation of congealed matter about the septae, 

 precisely the places where it is to be expected. The same appear- 

 ance of a canal of communication, the same irregular constriction of 

 certain cells ; in this too the first change in the pinnae, or its com- 

 ponent lobes, is the definition of the margin. In this genus the under 

 surface of the frond is covered with these hairy -form bodies (which 

 have been figured over and over again in Hooker and Greville's ferns) : 

 on the upper face, a few exist, but incomparably less developed. 



From the examination of this genus alone, I do not think the idea 

 I have been so diffuse upon, would have struck me. 



To-morrow I examine Ceterach, assured that the scales of its under 

 face are reducible to the same type. In a matter of such interest 



* These sketches, together with the author's further views on the subject, will 

 be more appropriately incorporated in the second part of his Posthumous Papers, 

 entitled 'Icones Plantarum Asiaticarum/ and ' Notulae ad plantas Asiaticas.' 



