314 
■JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ April 18, 1889. 
yellow Corbularia, the upper portion with N. variiformis, and the 
neighbouring heights with Triandrus albus. 
Mr. Barr says a month might be easily spent exploring the 
mountainous regions within a circuit of a few miles. The collector, 
however, must be satisfied with homely fire, primitive accommodation, 
and not bad wine. 
LEAKING OF HOT-WATER PIPES—MAINS. 
I suspect it does not matter greatly whether pipes leak the most when 
hot or cold, if they leak at all, but with split sockets my experience has 
been the same as that of “ S. H. ” (p. 299), namely, there was most leakage 
when hot. In the conservatory here we had two cases of split sockets 
last winter, and they certainly leaked the most when hot, as the con¬ 
stant trickling of water into the feed cistern testified. In the new range 
of plant houses lately erected we have not adopted the ordinary socket 
pipes which require caulking (and all gardeners who have had leakages 
know the trouble and anxiety when pipes have had to be removed during 
severe weather), but sockets with nuts and bolts attached and square- 
made indiarubber rings. Of course the first cost is greater, but the 
quickness with which they can be put together is remarkable. If there 
should ever be a leak, a length may be taken out and a sound one replaced 
in a very short time. There is nothing to fear from a socket leak, as, if 
this should happen, a turn with a screw-key will soon put a stop to it. 
I have often seen questions asked as to the best means of conserving 
heat in mains when carried some distance to the houses. In one of the 
ranges here the boiler is unavoidably placed 70 or 80 yards away, but 
we have the main covered with a patent non-conducting composition, 
which does admirably for the purpose. Silicate of cotton is also good, 
but more expensive. Mains should always be placed in dry brick 
chambers if possible, and kept free from damp earth.—A. Young. 
I AM amused with the remarks on this subject in your pleasing 
paper. I had a leak in a pipe when the pipes were cold, not so when 
hot. Why, how, or wherefore I do not know, but it is a fact.—A mateub, 
I HAVE been interested in the article on hot-water pipes leaking, and I 
think your correspondent “ S. H.”(page299) is right. I have at the present 
time four or five joints in the stove and two in the greenhouse cracked 
and leaking. I have to fill the supply cistern twice a week, and lose more 
water when I have to fire hard than when I do not. When I was at 
Stuffynwood Hall a few years ago we had something similar. It was in 
winter, and it was my duty to fire in the daytime. I started the fire 
about 3 P.M., and drove it on till 5 o’clock, when suddenly a loud crack 
was heard, and the water came hissing out. I ran down the stokehole, 
pulled the fire out, and the water stopped in an hour afterwards. One 
of the young men had to sit up all night to keep the fires going very 
steadily for a week, till the pipe could be repaired. This is a little of 
my experience with leaky pipes, and I hope I am not trespassing too much 
on your valuable space. I have a valve broken, and it has red lead 
all round it, but that is of no use whatever.— J. Munks, Coonibe Lea, 
Bicldey. 
[No person trespasses who communicates his experience in gardening 
duties.] 
FERN SPORES. 
[A pap»r read before the Caterham Horticultural and Cottage Gardeners’ Society, on 
Friday, March 8th, 1889, by Mr. Geo. H. Rose, Hon. Secretary to the Society.] 
It is not my intention this evening to attempt anything which can 
by any mental process be regarded as a practical horticultural paper. 
Bather is it my desire that you will examine with me some typical 
instances of vegetable reproduction, and that, guided by the phenomena 
which are to be observed in their spore development, we may endeavour 
to find a place for Ferns in the scale of plant life. Plants have been 
divided into two great classes :— 
I. Phanerogams, or flower bearers. 
II. Cryptogams, or having their organs of reproduction buried or 
hidden. 
It is in the latter division, the Cryptogams, that we must at starting 
place our Ferns, for their mode of reproduction is, to say the least, 
decidedly hidden, obscure, and difficult of investigation. Carrying 
classification to further lengths, Cryptogams may be subdivided into 
two groups. 
(a) Those in which there is an evident distinction of leaf and stem, 
such as Ferns, Mosses, Horsetails, and Club Mosses. 
(b) Those which show no such leaf and stem modifications, such as 
Mushrooms, Algae, Lichens, and the scum-like confervas which 
sometimes appear on the surface of water. 
Now just as it is possible to discover something of an apparently 
progressional rise in the forms of the animal kingdom, from the tiny 
animalcule which, without any obvious physiological organism, lives its 
transient life in the water drop up to the highly organised mammal, so, 
to a perhaps somewhat less satisfactory degree of nicety, is it possible 
to arrange our plant forms in a similarly ascending scale, from the 
almost imperceptible scum which first dims the surface of the stagnant 
pool up to the splendid forms of vegetable life which load themselves 
with luscious fruit. If, in search of forms other than those contem¬ 
porary with ourselves, we examine the rocks of bygone ages, we find 
that the earliest traces of animals and vegetables afford an undoubted 
indication that the primitive forms of life were decidedly more like the 
Alga: and the animalculas than like the flowering plants and the 
mammals. Pursuing this line of investigation still further, we shall find 
our buried plant forms gradually altering and increasing in complexity 
as the successive ages are indicated by successive strata. But back in 
the early life-containing rocks we find Fern-like plant fossils long before 
any trace of the flowering plants can be detected. 
The result of this preliminary investigation will at least be to pre¬ 
dispose us to rank the Cryptogams below the Phanerogams. It is my 
hope that I shall be able to show you some additional reason for regard¬ 
ing this as a correct arrangement. If you will refer to the classification- 
of plants with which we started, you will see that the Cryptogams in¬ 
clude a tvide range of forms, and of those it is easy to accept the Algae 
as perhaps the lowest in development. Having thus come to some 
simple arrangement, we can proceed to an investigation of the parti¬ 
cular points suggested by the title of this paper. For the definite pur¬ 
pose which I have in view it will be necessary to examine a specimen of 
the lowest and most primitive form, a specimen of the highly organised, 
form, and then between the two the Fern itself. 
In order that my remarks may be clear, or at least less obscure than 
they would be without it, I shall have to digress for a moment and 
direct your attention to the manner in which a growing plant is in¬ 
creased in size. If some portion of a plant be taken—root, stem, leaves,, 
bloom, fruit, or seed—it will, when examined microscopically, be found 
to consist of a number of attached but individually distinct cells. If 
one individual cell be examined under suitable conditions it will be 
found to be a minute bag or sack, containing a semi-watery fluid. This 
fluid is known as protoplasm, and is found in the cells of all living 
organisms whether animal or vegetable. The wall of the sac is com¬ 
posed of a substance known as cellulose, simply a modified form of the- 
protoplasm. In the interior of a cell near the centre is a kind of 
kernelling, which is known as the nucleus. This, like the cellulose in 
the wall, is another modified form of the protoplasm. It is to the 
nucleus that we must direct our continued attention. If the cell which 
we are examining is a living one, continual fresh supplies are finding- 
their way through the wall of the cell, and the nucleus increases in size 
until, after a gradual process of fission, it finally severs into two separate 
portions, each of which forms a distinct nucleus. The cell wall at the 
same time closes on the internuclear space, and ultimately two cells are 
produced by the complete interposition of a wall of cellulose between 
the two nuclei. No sooner are these new cells in distinct and separate- 
existence than the process above described is repeated in each of them 
with a precisely similar result. By such an exceedingly simple process 
as this plants increase in size. In some cases the cellular subdivision 
progresses but slowly, while in others the process is an exceedingly rapid 
one. The materials of which the protoplasmic fluid is composed have- 
to be taken in by the plant’s roots and leaves, but the real work of 
growth and enlargement goes on invariably in this process of cellular 
subdivision. 
From a consideration of the cellular growth of plants we come to- 
the cellular origin of plants. In our original table we saw among the 
lower forms of the Cryptogams the Algae. Some of these are of the 
most simple and rudimentary character. Imagine a plant consisting of 
only a single cell 1 Such plants really exist, and these are propagated, 
as one would imagine, by the simple process of growth by cellular sub¬ 
division. Let the one cell be divided, and there, complete in all their 
parts, are two plants. In this example we have at once the simplest 
mode of reproduction, and a direct instance of cellular origin. 
Following the plan we sketched out for ourselves we shall now- 
look at the origin of one of the highly organised flowering plants, 
with its elaborate and complex system of reproduction. The common 
Wallflower is the type I select. The cellular subdivision which we-, 
have seen is the basis of all plant growth progresses in the Wall¬ 
flower, until at last at each terminal point cells are produced, which 
by repeated subdivision will build up the bloom with its intricate 
organisation. Take the matured flower and examine it. Occupying 
the centre is the pistil, the top of which, the stigma, takes a fleshy- 
form, and is covered with a gum-like substance. Carefully dissect 
the pistil by splitting it longitudinally down the centre. Tt is found, 
to consist of two long narrow cavities. Quite early in the growth of 
the bloom, long before it is matured, there may be found on each 
side of the central division and attached to it a row of minute bod 
