10 
STV.CCTL'KK. 
The spores are minute sphaeroidal bodies, arranged 
without order within their cases. They differ obviously 
from seeds in having no special organs, consisting merely 
of a homogeneous mass of cells, and they differ also in 
other material respects. In true seeds the radicle or 
young root, and the plumule or young shoot, are de- 
veloped from determinate points, nothing of which occurs 
in the development of ferns from the spores. On the 
contrary, they consist merely of a small vesicle of cellular 
tissue growing indifferently from any part of its surface, 
and becoming divided into others, which are again 
multiplied, and become enlarged until they form a small 
green leaf-like germinal scale, from which in due time 
the proper fronds are produced. 
The germination of the spores of ferns has lately ex - 
cited much inquiry, the result of which leads to the inference 
that something like sexuality exists among all the higher 
groups of so-called Cryptogatnous plants, a kind of fertilisa- 
tion taking place on a development from the spore called 
the pro-embryo, which in the ferns takes the form of a 
leaf- like scale, as already mentioned. 
It has also been 
inferred that some- 
thing like an alter- 
nation of generations 
takes place the one 
complete generation 
consisting of the 
scale which is de- 
Figs. 1 to 5. The spore and its stages of development ; fig. 5 
showing two antheridia. 
