REPRODUCTION AND PROPAGATION 
9 
these, decaying, often start a mould which carries off the 
young plants. The pot may then be placed in any dark, 
damp corner in a greenhouse, or frame, or even behind a wall, 
and should never be allowed to get either too dry, or too wet. 
When the young plants have about two to three fronds, they 
should be carefully transplanted an inch apart in fresh pots, as 
the first soil will probably have become a little sour, and when 
three inches high they may be potted singly. Some ferns 
persistently refuse to grow from spores ; but whether this is 
owing to a defect in the spores, or to the want of proper 
conditions, still remains to be demonstrated. 
In some known cases, as in Osmunda , the spores are green, 
and will only germinate if sown at once; in others they- grow 
after being dried and kept. It is claimed that cross-fertilisa- 
tion has taken place in some cases where prothalli of different 
species were growing together and that the resultant ferns are 
hybrids retaining permanent distinctive characters. If this 
be the case it opens the way to the explanation of all variation 
in ferns (as in other plants) into varieties, species, genera, etc. 
But accidental variation, or variation due to surrounding con- 
ditions or circumstances, may also have a share in this, as such 
variations often become fixed and permanent if reproduction 
only takes place by division of the plant, and sometimes also 
if reproduction is by means of spores. 
There are several other methods of propagating some ferns 
besides by spores, such as by buds produced on the frond, by 
division of the rhizome, and, in rare cases, by buds produced 
on the roots. Buds produced on the frond are remarkable 
for the regularity with which they occur in the same part of 
the frond. Thus in Asplenium monanthes the bud is a few 
inches up the stalk, in A. lanulatam it is at the tip of the 
frond, and in A. gemmiferum it is below the terminal pinnule. 
Some forms are seldom seen wild without bearing buds, and 
in the moist close forest this peculiarity seems to be even 
more developed than in cultivation. 
Any form having long rhizomes may, with proper care, be 
propagated by division, but in several this is found to be most 
difficult, especially the Gleichenias, and the Bracken. 
