208 
LIFE STORIES OF PLANTS 
these spores are ripe and have been scattered, some of 
them fall in damp places on the ground, or on a rotting 

Sat owne,-  Seruit’ 
dots of thecommon little object, shown 
polypody fern. 
prothallium (pro-thal’l-um). On 
log in the woods. Here this tiny bit of 
living fern substance begins to grow, 
and the living matter inside the hard 
brown coat pushes its way out through 
a split in the wall; im a few weeks it 
has grown into a tiny heart-shaped bit 
of plant tissue no bigger round than a 
radish seed, or a small pea, and as thin 
and delicate as fine tissue paper. This 
in Fig. 254, is a fern 
the underside are numbers of root- 
lets, like root hairs, and two kinds 
of tiny pockets. This little pro- 
thallium now gives birth to the 
embryo fern plant. 
How the embryo of the fern plant 
starts. The germ cell is in one of 
the large pockets near the deep 
notch in the prothallium, and the 

sperms are in the round pockets. wia.oss. « Fruit” dots of the 
One of the sperms swims into 
the germ pocket, unites with the germ, and then the 
germ grows into the embryo fern plant. 
