17G 
Transactions of the Society. 
cnlar, spinulose or smooth skin, inclosing a hyaline cell with nuclei, 
and a similar but simpler spore is produced in the sporogone of mosses. 
Exposed to moisture, warmth, and light, growth commences in the 
fern-spore, the exospore is ruptured, and the endospore is protruded 
as a hyaline sausage-shaped vesicle, containing fine granules and 
mucilaginous protoplasm, in which also chlorophyll soon begins to 
form ; this becomes septate and divided into a short branched pro- 
embryo, next one end widens out into a plate, and by more rapid 
lateral cell-division produces a reniform prothallus consisting of a 
single stratum of parenchymatous cells, fixed to the substratum on 
which it has developed by fine rhizoids or root-hairs, and it is on this 
little green embryonic growth, when about 1/4 in. in diameter, that 
the organs of impregnation are found. 
The great phytotomist Kiigeli — so recently lost to us — -first 
noticed the antherozoids in 1843, hut it was the Polish Count 
Leszczyc Suminski who fully investigated the subject, and in 1848 
gave us the result in a beautifully illustrated memoir ‘ Zur Entwickel- 
ungs-Geschichte der Farnkrauter,’ dedicated to King Friedrich 
Wilhelm, who bore the cost of publication, and I well remember the 
stir made in the botanical world by this event, though, as usual 
with many great discoveries, it met with much ridicule and opposition. 
Both the antheridia or male organs and the archegonia or female are 
produced from single cells on the under surface of this little cellular 
expansion : the former lie chiefly among the root-hairs towards the 
side farthest from the marginal notch, as little globular projections of 
single cells, at first containing chlorophyll, but afterwards free cells 
tilled with transparent globules or nuclei. As this cell grows up it 
becomes cut oft' from the prothallium cell by a transverse septum, 
small new cells appear filled with granules, and when ripe, the 
antheridium bursts at the apex, and out pour the slimy contents full 
of small round cells, each containing an antherozoid or spiral thread, 
having a club-shaped anterior extremity provided with 6-8 cilia, 
which have an active lashing movement. Between the middle of the 
prothallium and marginal notch are other ovate teat-like bodies 
composed of 10-12 cells, which originate also from single superficial 
cells of the prothallium ; these are the archegonia ; they develope into 
a spherical cavity, round which eventually four larger quadrate cells 
form, and vertically over each of these, three more cells are developed 
and lengthen the quadrangular space into a canal closed at apex by 
the terminal cells being applied to each other. The large cell at base 
divides by a transverse wall, the lower part forming the central cell 
of the archegonium, the upper the neck, and the central cell again 
divides into two, the lower part developing into the globular oosphere, 
the upper part into the canal cells, the contents of which, converted 
into mucilage, push apart the apical cells, and hang in a pellet in 
front of the aperture. Here we have a counterpart of what we may 
observe in many flowering plants, e. g. in Lilium speciosum, where at 
