THE WONDERS OF THE SPORE. 
35 
of reproducing tlie parent form in all its luxuriant and 
stately magnificence. 
To bring this illustration of fecundity home to the mind, 
we have estimated the spores upon a single frond of our native 
common Polypody {Polypodium vulgare), and found that one of 
the sub-divisions of the same size, taken from a Tree Fern, 
would yield plants sufiicient to form a wood as large as 
Epping Forest. Every frond would bear hundreds of such 
sub-divisions, and the Tree Fern would probably bear thirty to 
forty fronds every season. A little calculation, therefore, will 
show that really inconceivable numbers have to be dealt with. 
bTotwithstanding this marvellous fecundity in point of num- 
bers, it has been demonstrated that it does not end here, 
each spore being capable of producing, under certain circum- 
stances, not merely one, but several plants, so that there is, 
practically, no limit to the reproductive powers of the Fern 
family. 
On the other hand, this wonderful fertility as regards 
numbers would appear to be very nearly counterbalanced, in 
a general way, by the minuteness of the spores handicapping 
them severely in their first stages of development. As an 
illustration of this, we recently gathered, in the winter, 
six dead, shrivelled fronds, from a plant of the Yictoria 
Lady Fern {Athyrium Filix-foemina Victorice), and which had, 
presumably, shed their spores; yet, on placing these between 
paper, in a warm room, in a few days a heap of remaining 
spores was shed, sufiicient to fill a teaspoon. Our first 
impression naturally was that this heap consisted merely of 
the empty capsules, but, to our surprise, the microscope 
revealed spores in abundance ; in such abundance, indeed, that, 
by careful sub-division, we were enabled to make a fair esti- 
mate, and found that there were at least eighty millions — a 
number which, enormous as it is, was, beyond a doubt, far 
exceeded by that of the spores which had been shed broad- 
cast in the Fernery where the plant was growing. Yet, 
though the plant has occupied its position for five years, 
and there are a thousand chinks and crevices around it, which 
should give the spores a fair opportunity of development, it 
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