HISTOEY OF BRITISH FERNS.
It is from the under side of the thickened point or
axis of development above mentioned, where it comes in
contact with the moistened soil, that the roots are protruded.
The stem, or caudex, whatever its character, originates in
this primary axis of development.
In the first stages of development, then, the young seedling
Eerns (that is, Eerns raised from the spores) assume the
appearance of a Liverwort, forming a green, semi-transparent,
crust-like patch on the surface of the soil—the unilateral
primordial scale referred to above.
In these minute and almost invisible atoms, no less than
in the more ponderous materials which surround us, we discover
the impress of Almighty and Creative power. They
teem with life ! No commixture of elementary matter, no
electric shock guided by human agency, can originate that.
Truly the hand that made them is Divine!
The requisite conditions to induce the germination of the
spores of Eerns, in addition to the supply of the degree of heat
proper for the species which produced them, is simply contact
with a continually damp surface. Diffused light is favourable
to the young growth as soon as it begins to form, but is apparently
not necessary as a means of exciting it. It matters
little in what way the principal condition above-mentioned
is supplied. In hothouses, where the plants stand and
shed their spores, the latter germinate freely on the undisturbed
soil, or on any damp brickwork with which they
come in contact, or on the upright sides of the pots in
which the plants are growing, if these are so circumstanced
as to remain continually damp. They grow very readily on
the rough surface of a piece of sandstone-rock, just kept
moistened by water constantly but slowly dripping upon it.
The most convenient way, however, to raise Eerns from
the spores, where cultivation is the object, is to sow them
on the surface of peat soil, in pots of convenient size, the
surface of the soil being kept an inch or more below the
level of the pot rim, so that a piece of flat glass may be
laid over the top, to secure a close and constantly moist
atmosphere, and prevent rapid evaporation from the soil.
The pots should be nearly half-filled with small pieces of
broken potsherds or of broken bricks, and the soil itself
should be used rather coarse than fine, the surface being
left rough, that is, not pressed down close and even. The
pots should be set in pans or feeders, in which water should
be kept so long as the soil does not become saturated. By
this means, the soil may be kept at the required degree of
continual dampness; but if by any chance saturation seems