British ferns and their allies : comprising the ferns, club-mosses, pepperworts, & horsetails / by Thomas Moore.

  • Thomas Moore
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: British ferns and their allies : comprising the ferns, club-mosses, pepperworts, & horsetails / by Thomas Moore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nation, that part which lies downwards produces the root, and that part which lies upwards produces the rudimentary stem. The spores themselves are minute vesicles of cellular tissue. As they grow, this vesicle becomes divided into others, which again multiply and enlarge, until they form a minute green leaf-like primordial scale or germ-frond, technically called the inotliallus. From this the axis with its roots and stem are eventually developed. In annual Ferns the mature character is soon at- tained, but in others, two or more years of growth is required before they reach maturity, and a much longer period is of course necessary to the maturity of those which acquire tree-like stems. They, how- ever, in most cases soon begin to assume something of their peculiar appearance. 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 vitality. Truly, the hand that made them is Divine ! The requisite conditions to induce the germination of the spores of Ferns, in addition to the degree of heat ])roper for the particular species to which they belong, is simply contact with a continually damp earthy surface. Diffused light is favourable to the young growth as soon as it begins to form. It matters little in what way the principal conditions are supplied. In confined situations con{?cnial to Ferns, the spores.
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