Observations on the Germination of Perns. 339 
liferum, Aspleiiium viviparum, c. In the latter case, however, 
several fronds are developed before any root appears, bnt in the for- 
mer the first gyrate frond is almost uniformly preceded by a root. 
The production of the important body above alluded to, is the ul- 
timate end and effort of the primary frond, and as it is the point 
at which gyrate developement commences, it may be regarded in 
the light of an incipient caudex. When it is matured, according to 
some one of the various forms which it assumes in different species, 
a root is protruded from one side of it, and soon after a small gyrate 
frond emerges from its summit, which when developed occupies the 
edge of the cellular knot, having the base of its stipe placed direct- 
ly over the base of the radicle. This last immediately descends 
into the earth, while the former rising from under the primary frond 
opens out into a small simple or lobed leaflet. When this is ma- 
tured, another is sent out. and the same process is repeated, a new 
root being in general added with each successive frond. The cel- 
lular mass in the meantime accumulates, and is gradually convert- 
ed into a central caudex. The primary frond having completed its 
office withers and decays, while the characters of the perfect fern 
become more and more apparent, as one frond succeeds to another. 
I have now traced the progress of this primary state of vegeta- 
tion from its origin to the point where it passes into the mature 
plant, and in the magnified representations, some assistance will be 
given towards forming an idea of the actual appearance which it 
assumes at different periods. 
It will be evident from what has been said, that the reproductive 
organs here have no affinity whatever with those existing in Phae- 
nogamous plants. There is here no seed in the proper sense of the 
word, no cotyledon, and no embryo. 
The likeness which exists between the germination of ferns and 
endogenous plants is one merely of analogy, for there is no real re- 
semblance in their mode of reproduction. In the one case the em- 
bryo is already formed within the seed ; in the other, as it should ap- 
pear, a single cellule with a proper integument gives origin, cell by 
cell, to an expansion of cellular tissue bearing no resemblance to the 
perfect plant, which at length produces from a knot at a particular 
point, a frond and root bearing a strong resemblance to an endogenous 
plant when germinating. The real relation then of the germina- 
tion to what takes place in endogenous plants appears to be, not to 
the germination of the seed, but to the propagation from the edges or 
disc, of the leaves from the cellular tissue, as in Baryophyllum caly- 
cinum, Malaxis paludosa, and a species of Ornithogalum observed 
