94 POLLEN-COLLECTORS 
ftom the base of the style is by a sudden bend upwards into the 
middle of each placenta, which presents two contiguous surfaces, 
and thence over the whole free external surface of the placenta, to 
which the foramen of each ovule is closely applied. After fecund- 
ation it is not a difficult task to dissect away the ovules with a 
considerable length of pollinic tube, whose anterior extremity. is 
inserted into the foramen; nor should I, after what I have already 
accomplished, despair of dissecting away an unbroken pollen-tube 
uniting the pollen-grain with the penetrated ovule. Until my 
recent examination of Campanula, L had obtained no conclusive 
evidence (after much pains bestcwed for that very object), that the 
pollen-tubes ever actually penetrated the ovule; and some of my 
observations already published seemed to justify the rejection of 
much of what had been advanced by previous writers in favour of 
that opinion; but I have now no hesitation in admitting it as 
proved; and it only remains to enquire into the mode and 
extent of operation of the ramps tube after its introduction to the 
interior of the ovule. 
As a consequence of the theory of Schleiden, it is maintained by 
Wydler, that plants have not two sexes, as hitherto supposed ; that 
the anther, far from being the male organ, is the female, in fact, 
an ovary; that the pollen-grain is the germ of a new plant; that 
the pollinie tube becomes the embryo within the embryo-sac of the 
ovule, which merely supplies nourishment and shelter to the embryo 
up to a certain period; and that ei ism is improperly 
termed “ fecundation.” 
It is, on the contrary, asserted by Mirbel and Spach, that the 
pistil fulfils an important function in generation, inasmuch as it 
originates of itself the primordial utricle, which in conjunction with 
those utricles that it produces, gives birth to the embryo ; and they 
conclude that phytologists are right in admitting the fecundation 
. . of plants, and in assimilating it, up to a certain point, to that of 
animals. They contend that the embryo-sac, as understood 
Schleiden, has no real existence; and that the wtricule primordiale. 
although it gives rise to the embryo, is not formed of the sii! 
fecundation by means of the pollen did not take place. — 
| extremity of the pollen-tube, though it would remain inert if —— : 
