ON THE SEXUAL REPRODUCTION OF FERNS 



AND MOSSES * 



By James Bagnall, Birmingham. 



A QUESTION was raised at one of our recent botanical section 

 meetings, as to whether ferns hybridise. My friend Mr. Morley 

 asserted that hybridisation was impossible in ferns ; whilst Mr. 

 Latham and myself contended that hybridisation was not only 

 possible, but that probably it was of frequent occurrence among these 

 plants. Time would not allow the matter to be discussed on the 

 evening in question, and as it is one of some interest, I have brought 

 it forward again for further consideration. With the development of 

 ferns, from a practical point of view, I am only slightly acquainted ; 

 but to that of the mosses I have given some little attention, and as 

 there are many analogies in the development and reproduction of 

 these two classes of plants, I think that if I can show, as I hope to 

 do, that hybridisation is a very likely circumstance in the mosses, we 

 may naturally infer that the like circumstance may also take place in 

 the ferns. 



But before discussing this question of hybridisation it is requisite 

 that a few words should be said on the reproduction of ferns and 

 mosses. I have, therefore, endeavoured to sketch out briefly a 

 history of this matter. Both ferns and mosses are cryptogamous 

 plants, developed normally from small cellular bodies termed spores. 

 These spores vary in size, form, and external markings, but agree in 

 being mere cellular bodies, having two coats or coverings, an inner 

 and an outer one, enclosing a grumous or granular mass, differing 

 from the seeds of flowering plants in having no trace in their structure 

 of an embryo ; hence these plants are called Acotytedons, 



When we sow the seed of the flowering plant, if it germinates, it 

 gives rise to a plant similar to the plant from which the seed was 

 taken ; but the spore of a fern or moss on germinating gives rise to 

 a structure very imlilie the plant on which the spore was developed, 

 called in the one ca^e (that of ferns) a prothallus, in the other (that 

 of mosses) a protonema, and from this prothallus or protonema plants 

 arise similar to the plant on which the spore was developed ; this is 

 called the alternation of generations, or, in other words, the son is not 

 like the father, but like the father's father. 



* Read before the Birmingham Natural History and Microscopical Society. 



