FERN CONFERENCE. 



513 



whilst equal parts of white and pink pollen only gave 41 per 

 cent, of white flowers. The second experiment with Aspidium 

 angulare, in order to increase size as well as greater develop- 

 ment, could only be done by using mixed spores in certain 

 proportions — i.e. six times the number of spores from the largest 

 crested varieties to one of a variety of larger growth, if sown 

 together, was thought might increase the vigour of the plant, 

 and thus produce a Fern having a larger size and a greater 

 crest. There are several of the plants here, and I might have 

 brought many more that give great promise of a successful 

 issue, though they are as yet only infants. Strength added in 

 this way might develop a tripinnate frond, so that the lobes of 

 the pinnules should even become stalked, crested, and more 

 divided. 



Investigations such as these are not confined to Ferns ; they 

 extend to flowering plants, and a great future is before the 

 students who prosecute these inquiries. Those who give them- 

 selves up to scientific investigations cannot avoid receiving adverse 

 expressions from unbelievers ; but doubt may change to belief, 

 for sooner or later truth will assert itself. The reasoning 

 which at first seemed cloudy and obscure may, by the multi- 

 plication of a chain of evidence, clear away these clouds, and 

 then the sun, the emblem of truth, will shine in all his glory. 



Discussion. 



Dr. Scott said that the most surprising statements in Mr. 

 Lowe's interesting paper related to the combination of the 

 characters of several varieties in a single individual in cases 

 where the spores of the varieties in question had been sown 

 together. If the result were really due to multiple hybridisation 

 it would involve the fertilisation of an ovum by several spermato- 

 zoids, each contributing somewhat of its own character to the 

 offspring. This supposition contradicted all that was directly 

 known as to fertilisation in Ferns, in which it had always been 

 found that only a single spermatozoid fused with the ovum. 

 Instances of multiple fertilisation in plants were rare ; Stras- 

 burger found that in certain Orchids both the male generative 

 nuclei sometimes fused with the ovum, but this instance was only 



