56 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 
hybrid Ferns could never be obtained, as we obtain Phaeno- 
gamous hybrids, having the seeds of one species fecundated 
by the seminal powder of a neighbouring species. 
The following circumstance has, however, recently been veri- 
fied in one of the greenhouses at the Botanical Garden at Lou- 
vain, and does not leave any doubt of the fact, that cases of 
Hybridity in Ferns are to be met with ; and, therefore, that 
this interesting family of vegetables, ought to be ranked 
among those plants that are endowed with sexual organs ; 
which justifies the division proposed by the same Botanists, of 
the Acotyledonous ptants of Jussieu into Crypt ogamous , pro- 
perly called Agamous , and ranking them in the following 
manner among the Mosses, Hepaticce, Lycopodia, and Ferns , — 
which are considered as having very small, but indistinct 
sexual organs. However this may be, it appears there is no 
occasion to doubt that neighbouring species of Ferns may 
sometimes produce Hybrid species, in the same manner as 
those plants which are furnished with very apparent sexual 
organs. The following fact is sufficient to dispel every 
doubt on the subject. 
There had been cultivated for some time in one of the 
greenhouses of the Botanical Garden, at Louvain, two beau- 
tiful species of Ferns, the Gymnogramma chrysophylla, 
(Spr.) and the Gymnogramma calomelanos (Kaulf). Two 
very distinct species and different from each other, especially 
as one of them has the underside of the leaves or fronds 
covered with a most beautiful golden yellow powder, and the 
other has the underside of its fronds furnished with a bright 
silvery powder, and has besides, its foliage much larger 
and diversely dentated. 
These two species were placed very near to each other, and 
there was not any other species of Fern in the greenhouse. 
The head gardener, Denkelaar, wishing to increase the Gym- 
nogramma chrysophylla, on account of the beauty of its foliage, 
sowed the sporules with great care in several small pots 
under glasses. These sporules came up very plentifully, but 
instead of finding Ferns like the mother plant, they fur- 
nished, with two or three exceptions, Ferns, the forms of 
which partook of the characters of both species, in such a 
manner, as to be intermediate between those of G. chryso- 
phylla and G. calomelanos, and more strongly resembled the 
latter than the former species, which may with propriety be 
termed their parent. Thus, instead of having plants whose 
foliage has a brilliant golden yellow on the underside, as in 
