156 
THE FERN FAMILIES OF BRITAIN. 
To anyone accustomed to deal witli Athyrium Filix-foemina, 
the first glance will strike one with surprise at the presence 
of fresh, green, unripe fructification with, in most cases, unlifted 
indusia, upon a deciduous Fern in November, months after the 
time when sporangia proper have ripened and scattered their 
spores, and when the indusia are usually in a ruinous and 
fragmentary state. Here and there the indusia on the pinnae 
exhibited will be seen to be lifted and to partially disclose 
a number of curious, club-shaped and occasionally serpentine, 
cellular masses which, though very different from the swollen, 
pear-shaped bodies of last year, differ as widely from embryo 
sori, showing no signs whatever of annulation or of the 
symmetry which would characterise immature sporangia when 
sufficiently advanced to protrude from the indusium. While, 
however, the pear-shaped pseudo-bulbils are conspicuous by 
their absence, it will be seen that some of the club-shaped 
excrescences are larger than others. From their general 
appearance, I believe that, given a more favourable season, 
some few would assume predominance, and form the pear- 
shaped pseudo-bulbils at the expense of the weaker growths, 
which would abort, as in many analogous cases. I incline 
the more strongly to this opinion, as among the bases of the 
pear-shaped bodies produced last year there were numerous 
thin, thready, and shapeless growths, exactly such as would 
be likely to originate in such a way. 
My present object being to confirm as far as possible the 
data I gave in June, I would call your attention — first, to the 
existence of the young plants upon the table, raised as 
described ; and, secondly, to the manifestly non-soriferous 
form of fructification borne by the parent plant, an ex- 
amination of which will, I think, go far to convince you 
that its offspring are engendered neither through spores 
nor by bulbils, but by some other mode of reproduction — 
a mode which, from constant and careful watching through 
all its stages, I believe to be one so far unrecorded in 
connection with any other Fern — viz., through prothalli pro- 
duced, not from spores, but by direct bud-growth from the 
parent frond. 
