globule verdatre qui y flotte librement. On n'appercoit encore rien d'organise dans ce petit corps, mais avec le temps et a mesure qii'il grossit, 

 on y distingue peu a peu deux petites feuiUes comme deux cornes. La liqueur se consomme insensiblement a mesure que ce petit corps gros- 

 sit ; et la graine etant devenue tout a fait opaque, en I'ouvrant on trouve sa cavite remplie de la petite plante en raccourci, composee du germe 

 ou de la plumule, de la radicule et des lobes de la Feve ou du Pois. 



" Si au contrairc dans les pivoines a fleurs doubles, qui sont tout k fait denudes d'etamines et de sommets, on examine les graines qu'elles 

 produisent, soit qu'elles soient avortees ou qu'elles ne la soient pas; on les trouve vuides contenant seulement quelques membranes dissechees 

 et sans aucune apparence de germe, semblables en cela a I'oeuf d'une poule qui n'a point ete feconde. En efFet, s'il y eAt eu un germe dans 

 ces membranes, n'auroit-il pas du grossir a proportion de ces enveloppes, et devenir tres sensible. 



" En suivant cette conjecture, il n'est pas difficile de determiner de quelle maniere le germe entre dans cette vesicule; car outre que la 

 cavite di4 pistile s'etend depuis son extremite jusqu'aux embryons des graines, ces vesicules ont encore une petite ouverture pres de leur attache 

 qui se trouve a I'extr^^mite du conduit du pistile; ensorte que le petit grain de poussiere pent tomber naturellement par cette ouverturc dans la 

 cavite ou espece de cicatricule reste encore asses sensible dans la pluspart des graines : on I'apperpoit tres aisement sans le secours du microscope 

 dans les Pois, dans les Feves et dans les Phaseoles. 



" La racine du petit germe est tout proche de cette ouverture, et c'est par cette meme ouverture qu'elle sort, lorsque la graine vient -k 



germer." 



Next in order follows tlie boastful Bradley, who published his " New Improvement in Planting and Gardening, both Philosophical and 

 Practical," in i;2l. He writes, " Mr. Morlai^d has, in Phil Trans. No. 287, anno 1703, given us to understand how the dust of the 

 apices in flowers (i. e. the male sperm) is conveyed into the germen or vasculum scminale of a plant, by which means the seeds therein con- 

 tained are impregnated. I then made it my business to search after this truth, and have had good fortune enough to bring it to demonstration 

 by several experiments ; since which, a gentleman of Paris has printed something of the same nature, in the Hist, de VAcad. de Sciences, for 

 the years 1711 and 1712, which were published about ten years ago. 



« But to come to the point; the lily being a flower more generally known than any other, and its generative organs being large and ex- 

 posed, I shall from thence endeavour to explain the method which nature makes use of to impregnate the seeds of that and every other plant, 

 and by which means the several species of vegetables have been continued to the world. 



" The flower of the lily has six leaves or petals, which are set on upon the summit of the footstalk ; they serve to guard the parts of 

 generation from the injuries of the weather; and as they are of no other use that I know of, so it is not necessary that I should place them in 



the figure. 



" B is the mouth of the pistillum, or passage w^hich leads into the germen C, in which are three ovaries filled with little eggs or rudi- 

 ments of seeds, such as we find in the ovaria of animals ; but these eggs will decay and come to nothing, unless they are impregnated by the 

 farina fa cundans or male seed of the same plant, or one of the same sort. 



" From D to E is a stamen of the lily, through which the male seed of the plant is conveyed to be perfected in the apex F, where, by 

 the sun's heat, it ripens and bursts forth in very minute particles like dust ; some particles of which powder falling upon the orifice B, is 

 either conveyed from thence into the germen C, or by its magnetic virtue, draws the nourishment, with great force, from the other parts of 

 the plant into the embryos of the fruit, and makes them swell. 



" Now, that the farina fcecundans or male dust has a magnetic virtue, is evident ; for it is that only which bees gather and lodge in the 

 cavities of their hind legs to make their Avax with ; and it is well known, that wax, when it is warm, will attract to it any light body. 

 But again, if the particles of this powder should be required by Nature to pass into the ovaries of the plant, and even into the several 

 eggs or seeds there contained, we may easily perceive, if we split the pistillum of a flower, that Nature has provided a sufficient passage for it 

 into the uterus, or gei'men. 



" In the first figure I have only given a design of one stamen with its apex, to prevent mistakes in ray explanation; but the flower of 

 every lily has six of the same figure and use, which are placed round about the pistillum, or female organ ; so that it is almost impossible it 

 should escape from receiving some of the male dust (or farina fcBcundans) falling upon it. 



" In this and other flowers of the like nature, the pistillum is always so placed, that the apices (anthers) which surround it, are either 

 equal in height with it, or above it ; so that their dust falls naturally upon it. And when we observe it to be longer than the apices, we may 

 then conjecture that the fruit has begun to form itself, and has no longer occasion for the male dust. And it is likewise observable, that as 

 soon as this work of production is performed, the male organs, together with the leaves or covering, fall off, and the pipe leading to the ger- 

 men begins to shrink. 



" We may farther remark, that the top of the pistillum in every flower, is either covered with a sort of velvet tunick, or emits a gummy 

 liquor, the better to catch the dust of the apices (anthers). 



" And now, as we may find in the description I have given of the lily, that the germen is within the flower; so, on the other hand, the 

 germen of a rose is w'ithout the flower, at the bottom of the petals or flower-leaves. And likewise in fruit trees, the cherries, plums, and 

 some others, have their utricles within their flowers ; and the gooseberry, currant, apples and pears, on the outside or bottom of their flowers. 

 But farther; although Nature has designed the dust of the apices to fecundate the pistillum contained in the flowers of plants, yet we ob- 

 serve that in some plants, the male and female organs are remote from each other. As, for example, the Gourd, Pompion, Melon, Cucumber, 

 and all of that race, have blossoms distinctly, male and female, upon the same plant. The male blossoms may be distinguished from the 

 others, in that they have not any pistil rudiment of fruit about them, but have only a large thrum covered with dust in their middle : the 

 female blossom of these has a pistillum within the petals or flower-leaves, and the rudiment of their fruit always apparent at the bottom of the 

 flower before it opens : and so in like manner all nut-bearing, and, I think, mast-bearing trees, have their catkins or male blossoms remote 

 from the female flowers. 



" The oak, for example, which blossoms in May, has its male flowers distinct from the acorns ; we find strings of little farinaceous flowers 

 in great abundance, as in the second figure marked G, remote from the rudiments of the acorns or fruit, marked H. And so likewise in the 

 IFalnut, Chesnut, Hazel, Pine, Cypress, and even the Mulberry, Aspen, and others. I have observed that some sorts of Willows change 

 their Sex every year, by producing only male blossoms or catkins one year, and the other following, strings of female blossoms, which, if 

 they then happened to be near enough some flowering male, will produce seeds. 



" When we view, with a good microscope, the male dust of any single plant, we find every particle of it to be of the same size and 

 figure; but in some cases it is of three colours, as in the tulip, where it is yellow, green, and black; but as plants differ from one another in 

 their figures and qualities, so are the figures of their several dusts greatly different from each other : a grain of the dust of Geranium San- 

 guineum, maxiniojlore, of C. B. P. is like a bead of a necklace with a hole through it. ' 



" The 



