56 THE ORIGIN OF THE SEED-PLANTS. 
doubtedly the oldest group of , Fern-like” plants of which we have fos- 
silevidence.... It seems therefore to be highly improbable that the Cy 
cadofilices could have descended from plants to which the name of 
„Fern”’, as understood in recent botany, can be applied. What the 
progenitors of the Cycadofilices were for the present remains un- 
known.” 
In spite of this judicious warning, the belief that Pteridosperms were 
descended from Ferns has undoubtedly been prevalent since their dis- 
covery. On a review of the evidence it appears that this view is unjus- 
tified. The question is of fundamental importance, for the „Seed- 
Ferns,” though very far from being really | primitive,’ are yet the 
most primitive of the known Spermophyta, as shown especially by their 
reproductive organs being borne on fronds, little if at all altered from 
the vegetative foliage. Thus the question of their origin may involve 
that of the origin of the Seed-plants generally. 
It is easy to see how the current idea arose. We used to believe 
that half the Carboniferous plants were Ferns. Then it turned out 
that many or most of these Ferns” bore seeds. Yet we could not 
get it out ‘of our heads that they. were Ferns after all — they were 
so like them. We should have remembered , That every like is not the 
same!” 
The fact is, paradocixal asit may sound, that the Pteridosperms are 
too much like Ferns to be related to them! A resemblance so close as to 
have deceived a great botanist like Sir Joseph Hooker, if it indicated 
relationship at all, must surely have implied a near relationship. Yet a 
near relationship is out of the question, for the Pteridosperms bore 
highly organised seeds, on a level with those of living Cycads, while 
the Ferns are ordinary Cryptogams, which only attain even to hetero- 
spory in a couple of specialised recent families, which certainly ya no 
thing to do with Seed-plants. 
There is not the most distant likeness between the sed of any 
known Pteridosperm, and the sporangium of a Fern. When we fancied 
that the two groups were related, we were bound to derive the one or- 
gan from the other, and the puzzle was attacked with much ingenuity. 
But all the attempts made to prove that the seed was once a Fern-spo- 
rangium depended on purely gratuitous hypotheses, involving assu- 
med intermediate stages which may never have had any existence ex- 
cept in the imagination of the speculators. We know ho more of the ori- 
