APOSPORY IN FERNS. 
153 
many of which are profusely proliferous, and, secondly, the 
protean nature of the family itself, is a singular fact. The 
discovery, however, of numerous proliferous buds which appeared 
upon some very small plants which I exhibited here in 1882, 
led me to institute further inquiries into this subject. I then 
ascertained that Mr. Mapplebeck had already observed the 
same phenomenon, and raised plants from similar bulbils, which 
appeared identical in position and character with those of the 
Asplenia. Last year, as already remarked, I found another 
and very distinct form of proliferation on a mature plant of 
A. F.-f. plumosum divaricatum, upon which numerous bulbils 
were evolved in the place of the sori, this, be it observed, 
being on the under side of the pinnae, a most unlikely place 
for such growths. This same transformation of the repro- 
ductive energy had already been observed on three other 
kindred forms of Athyrium, upon one of which the bulbils 
and sori were scattered almost indiscriminately over the back 
of the fronds, some of the sori seeming to be in an inter- 
mediate amorphous condition; though in all other cases, so 
far as I could see, the sori and bulbils were distinctly diffe- 
rentiated by the presence, in the former case of an indusium, 
and in the latter of lanceolate scales arranged shuttlecock 
fashion around the bulbil, no trace of indusium existing. 
Such bulbils had, until this season, failed invariably to yield 
plants, and seemed incapable of forming a proper axis of 
growth. Mr. G. B. Wollaston has, however, succeeded in 
obtaining plants this spring from A. F.-f. plumosum elegans, 
and one or two of those from A. F.-f. plumosum divaricatum 
have developed fresh fronds with me. 
From this it will be seen that no less than three distinct 
forms of proliferation have now been observed on the Athyria : 
1. Bulbils of the ordinary character, developed in the axils 
and on the superior surface of the pinnae, and agreeing in 
character with the ordinary bulbils of the Asplenia. 
2. Bulbils formed apparently by transmuted spore-producing 
energy, and occupying the place of sori, i.e., on the under side 
of the pinnae — a position so far, I believe, quite unrecorded 
in connection with any of the Filices. 
