686 Mr. Brown on the Organs and Mode of 
bable, and have consequently had recourse to other explana- 
tions of the function. 
In 1760, Haller, the earliest writer of the first class, in de- 
scribing his Epipactis, states that the antherz or pollen masses, 
after leaving the cells in which they are originally inclosed, are 
retained by the process called by him sustentaculum, the rostel- 
lum of Richard, from which they readily fall upon the stigma *. 
He adds, that both in this genus and in Orchis the stigma com- 
municates by a fovea or channel with the ovarium. 
But as in 1742 he correctly describes the stigma of Orchist, 
and in his account of Epipactis Ẹ notices also the gland derived, 
as he says, from the sustentaculum, and which is introduced 
between and connects the pollen masses, his opinion on the 
subject, though not expressed, is distinctly implied even at that 
period: or as indeed it may be said to have been so early as 
17368, when he first described the channel communicating with 
the ovarium, and considered it as being in the place of a 
style. 
In 1763, Adanson|| states that the pollen masses are projected 
on the stigma, of which his description is at least as satisfactory 
as that of some very recent writers on the subject. He also de- 
scribes the flower of an Orchideous plant as being monandrous, 
with a bilocular anthera, containing pollen which coheres in 
masses (a view of structure first entertained, but not published, 
by Bernard de Jussieu) ; and he correctly marks the relation 
both of the stamen and placente of the ovarium to the divi- 
sions of the perianthium. _ 
In 1777, Curtis, in the Flora Londinensis in his figure and 
~ * Orchid. class. constitut. in Act. Helvet. iv. p. 100: 
+ Hail. Enum. p. 262. l Id. p. 274. 
§ Meth. stud. bot. p. 21. || Fam. des Plant. ii. p. 69. 
S Juss. gen. pl. p. 66. 
account 
