98 
APPENDIX. 
as if to show Nature’s versatility to the best advantage, so that it 
is difficult now, if not impossible, to suggest any other modification 
left open for future discovery, except, perhaps, that so far the 
germinating spore has always started with a chain of prothallic 
cells, and might some day see fit to push out a bulbil instead, and 
so oust the prothallus in a fresh fashion. The lack of any 
adequate store of nutriment renders this improbable, but when we 
see roots proper emerging from the surface of a prothallus instead 
of a bulbil, as in some of Dr. Lang’s cultures, it is rash to 
pronounce anything as impossible, we have only to transform the 
emerging primary cell into such a self-feeding root, and a subse- 
quent bulbil is easily conceivable ; the spore in such a case 
assuming the function of a seed despite non-fertilisation, just as in 
apogamy, asexual buds are generated on the prothallus. 
For the benefit of those interested, we append reprints of our 
several Linnean papers bearing on the subject of apospory, and 
refer them furthermore to Professor Bower and Dr. Lang’s 
monographs and Dr. Stansfield’s paper* for fuller details of the 
other phenomena. For clearness sake we append a list of 
aposporous Ferns discovered to date, as some of them do not 
figure in above reports. 
Aposporous Ferns. 
Name. 
Discoverer. 
Description. 
Remarks. 
Athyrium Filix- . . 
Demina claris- 
sima Jones 
Druery .. 
Soral 
Product, typical. 
A. f. f.c. Bolton . . 
Druery . . 
Soral and apical 
., mostly defective. 
A. f.f. uncoglom-. . 
eraturn Stans- 
field. 
Stansfield 
” ” 
. „ typical, only in- 
duced by long culture. 
Polystichum 
angulare pul- 
cherrimum 
Padley 
Wollaston 
•• • '* M • 
. Product, depauperate. 
P. a. p. Wills 
Bruerv 
,, ,, 
P. a. p. Mo y 
Stansfield 
.. 
. ,, ,, rarely 
true, and then weakly. 
P. a. plumosissi- . 
mum Birkenhead 
(densely plumose 
with linguiform 
tips which 
develop p r 0- 
thalli with diffi- 
culty). 
Druery 
.. Aiical 
. Product, typical. 
Lastrea pseudo- .. 
mas cristata 
Druery 
.. Tan apospory .. 
. . „ ,, but not 
apospoious when adult. 
* Professor F. O. Bower, F.L.S., on “Apospory and Allied Phenomena,” 
Linn. Trans., vol. 2, part xiv. July, 1887. 
W. H. Lang, M.B., B.Sc., on “ Apogamy and the Development of 
Sporangia upon Fern Protlialli. Phil. Trans. Royal Society, vol. 190 (189S), 
pp. 187-238. 
I)r. F. W. Stansfield, on “ The Production of Apospory by Environ- 
ment in A. f. f. uncoglomeratum.” Journal Linn. Soc., vol. 34, No. 237. 
pp. 262-^67. 
