









CHAPTER VI 
MULTIPLE PARENTAGE 
SINCE the possibility of combining the characters of more than 
two varieties by crossing has been advocated by the late Mr. E. J. 
Lowe, and a mass of presumed confirmatory evidence put forward 
in his interesting work, entitled Fern Growing, we think it only right 
to give equal publicity to the reasons which, in our opinion, con- 
trovert this possibility. In the first place must be considered the 
fundamental simplicity of the operation of fertilization. That 
operation consists in the fusion of two sexual principles, one con- 
tained in an ovarial cell, the other in a sperm cell, each of which 
has been previously prepared by Nature for coalition by the removal 
of one-half of the vital nucleus, so that, by itself, it is incapable of 
performing the work of a perfect cell, viz. self-multiplication and 
contribution thereby to the needful vital work of building up the 
plant concerned. Nature has provided many modes of bringing 
these two half-cells together, and it is clear from. all biological 
experiments that when they are brought closely adjacent, the sperm 
half-cell makes its way to the ovarian half-cell, with which it 
coalesces, thus constituting one perfect cell by union of the vital half- 
nuclei, and this done the completed cell proceeds to multiply itself 
in the usual way, and to build up a now fertilized seed. Obviously 
with such an arrangement there is absolutely no room for a second 
sperm cell, much less for several, to operate, the combination is 
effected, and it is precisely as if a lid had been fitted on to a pill-box 
and an attempt were made to fit on one or more lids afterwards. 
The fact that a very much larger number of sperm cells are formed 
than there are ovarian ones is simply and solely one of those many 
securities which Nature provides for the permanence of a race, 
regardless apparently of cost of material. 
With reference to the many combined forms of variation which 
were produced by Mr. Lowe, by mixtures of spores of Ferns dis- 
playing different types, we have carefully studied these, and find 
that in many cases the forms sown were more or less of a 
protean character, and likely, by themselves, without any cross- 
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