The appearances of the old ones are, if possible, more markedly in favour of my hypothesis; there is the same aggregation of grumous congealed matter about the ends of each cell, the same curious communication between these masses which hide the septa from view, evincing a greater or less tendency to assume the peculiar fuscesent or fusco-brown appearance.  I observed in two instances what appeared to me decided irregular openings in the terminal cell, from one of which grumous filaments projected; these appeared to communicate with the mass in the terminal cell, which like that in all the others, is congealed; but it assumes a different and very undefined form.

People may object and say, why were not more met with opened?  This is no objection, because it is obvious that a spherical body may be opened in part of its surface, and yet unless this portion happens to be on the edge as it were of the sphere, it may escape detection with a microscope of poor penetration.

In this the ramenta are confined, or nearly so, to the under surface of the fronds.  Most occupy that which is called the costa.  In this the first change as in Adiantum is in the definition of the margin.  But this point I have not paid much attention to, as with my present means here, it would be absurd to attempt proving how the fecundation takes place; all that I can attempt is, to ascertain from structure and analogy, the male nature of these curious bodies.

See Plate B for the various sketches. {450}

The next genus examined, is perhaps the instance in which these ramenta have the strongest resemblance to ordinary simple hairs, both in their young, when they represent succulent, tinged, grumous molecular-containing hairs, and in the old, when they represent long, flattened, coriaceous hairs, still there is abundant evidence to prove that, however different these bodies are in appearance from those of Cryptogamma, that they undergo the same changes, excepting perhaps as to dehiscence.  We have a tendency to fuscous colouring, a tendency to the aggregation of congealed matter about the septae, precisely the places where it is to be expected.  The same appearance of a canal of communication, the same irregular constriction of certain cells; in this too the first change in the pinnae, or its component lobes, is the definition of the margin.  In this genus the under surface of the frond is covered with these hairy-form bodies (which have been figured over and over again in Hooker and Greville’s ferns):  on the upper face, a few exist, but incomparably less developed.

From the examination of this genus alone, I do not think the idea I have been so diffuse upon, would have struck me.