To those who require proof of the existence of the complex male organ of Phaenogams, or of a male of that form with which only they are familiar, I do not address myself; but to the philosophic botanist, who expects to meet with in the lower orders of plants, a lower organization, one with a tendency of reduction to the essential elements, and who bears in mind the comparative anatomy and structure of similar bodies in adjoining, or not very distant groups, I beg leave to suggest the intimate study of the ramenta of Ferns.

Various as the situation of the fructification is, in three out of the above four genera, yet the initial arrangements are precisely the same.  The various forms therefore may not depend proximately on fructification itself, but on the peculiar growth given to the species, in the same way in fact as we have the numerous modifications of the theca in mosses, etc. and the infinite modifications of the carpels in Phaenogams.

(Attention is particularly pointed to those ferns which have general capsules or involucres.

Above all to the Cyatheoid forms.

To Ophioglossum.

To naked Thecae.

To indusiate as Asplenia, etc.)

But however erroneous these views may be, they will still have been of service if general attention is directed by them to plants, in consequence of the suggestions they make.  The time now thrown away on isolated species, the station of which, still does not become fixed, when devoted to the philosophical examination of ferns, will rescue botany from one of its numerous reproaches.  It is strange that such should exist to the greatest degree in all those families stamped by nature as most distinct.  Those chaoses Polypodium, Aspidium, Davallia, would then undergo distinct creation, and the primary divisions of the family would become fixed; and we should then be spared the reproach of drawing characters from organs, of the nature and functions of which we are quite ignorant of, and of the importance of which in a science of demonstration like that of botany, it is impossible to judge, without a true knowledge of structure.

Vide Lindley’s Introd. ed. 2, 407, for the protest of Greville and
Arnott.

What is the most comprehensive definition of a pistil.  A case in which the future organs of reproduction are developed; and here is a most curious circumstance, namely, that though the calyptra, which is a genuine pistillum containing an ovulum, becomes torn up from its base, yet it remains in contact with that part of the seta in which the sporules are developed until these make their appearance, or even later!! so that one might as well deny a pistillum to a Reseda, or Leontice, as deny it to these plants on the strength of its being torn from its attachments.  Sprengel’s objections are worthy only of being noticed from their having been quoted by Lindley.  The vagueness of his statement destroys all weight.