Sporangia containing Spermatozoids in Ferns

Abstract

ALTHOUGH ferns have in a few instances shown some irregularities in the development of the haploid and diploid generation, such as appertain to apogamy and apospory, there has so far been little concrete evidence to homologise the sexual organs (or their content) with sporangia (or their spores) in ferns. The fact that spermatozoids have now been found in normal sporangia of Scolopendrium vulgare may thus be of some interest from the phylogenetic point of view and may throw more light on the alternation of generations, which in ferns is of such a stable and characteristic type.