BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
G1 
grammae has any “ activity for that purpose I will first set 
right the two species of Ferns which are both of the arrange- 
ment of Kaulfuss, not Sprengel. 
Stehlin, Hill, Maratti, Gleichen, Bernhardi, have each 
stated their discoveries of the anthers of Ferns, but all failed 
in establishing its truth, and their several theories have in 
the more advanced state of microscopic researches become 
obsolete. 
You are aware the sori of the genus Gymnogramma have 
no indusium or cover, and until the contraction of their elas- 
tic ring causes the capsules to burst, the seeds (or sporules 
more correctly speaking) are closely enclosed from outward 
contact. The seeds thus only become visible when arrived 
at maturity, and surely no one can imagine that the perfect 
seed of another plant placed beside them could produce in 
either one or the other, a hybrid plant. That a third Fern 
grew in the pot in which the sporules had been sown, I have 
no doubt, and to those at all conversant with such Botanical 
pursuits, it will not appear surprising, for I have frequently 
found Ferns, not only of another species, but of another 
genus spring up in the place of those I w ished to grow. 
Flaving for a length of time been engaged in growing 
Ferns from seed, as the only w ? ay (except by importation) of 
obtaining many species new r to this country, I send you spe- 
cimens of three species of Gymnogramma, all raised by me 
from seed off fronds of their respective sorts, viz, Gymno- 
gramma chrysophylla and Gymnogramma calomelanos of 
Kaulfus, and Gymnogramma sulphurea of Desv. The latter 
one I consider the species, supposed by M. Martens to be 
his “ Hybrid,” as he probably was previously unacquainted 
with it. It partakes, as he describes, more of the nature of G. 
calomelanos than of G. chrysophylla, but is a most distinct 
species from either. 
By close examination of the capsules and sori of Ferns in 
their different stages of giwth, and from the general belief 
also that generating organs in Ferns have never by the most 
minute inspection been discovered, I am clearly of opinion 
M. Martens has been deceived in his u fact,” and that it is 
much more easily to be accounted for by any person who has 
paid any attention to the very numerous and extremely mi- 
nute particles of Fern seed, than in the loose and unscientific 
manner described by M. M. 
I should scarcely have thought it necessary to give this 
contradictory opinion to M. M., had not the statement ap- 
