80 MR. T. H. CORRY ON THE DEVELOPMENT 
A very slight examination will easily afford convincing proof that both of these views 
are at variance with the facts. 
No other observer, with the exception of Payer, has attempted to fathom the mode of 
origin of this membrane; and this observer held that the viscid gum forming the 
* appendages” or “processes” of the stigmatic corpusculum—which he believed was 
a liquid secreted by a gland (the corpusculum)—flowing in lateral channels or grooves, 
when it arrived at the anther-lobes on which the lateral grooves abut, penetrated into the 
interior of these lobes, and agglomerated the grains of pollen, uniting them afterwards 
through their whole extent (vide ‘ Traité d’Organogénie comparée de la Fleur,’ vol. i. 
page 569). This same investigator did not examine the method of development of the 
pollinium by means of sections; or it would have been clearly evident to him that the 
investing membrane is formed and completed at a period long prior to the dehiscence of 
the walls of anther-loculi and consequent exposure of the pollinium, also that the only 
function performed by the corpuscular appendages, when the anther-loculi have opened 
by dehiscence, is that of firmly attaching the pollinia to their free ends, the substance of 
the two bodies, though externally united, being never confounded, but always remaining 
completely distinct, and moreover giving different reactions with micro-chemical reagents. 
Schacht believed (on what evidence he does not state) that the investing membrane was 
“ of the nature of a secretion; and such is the view held by Prof. Oliver” *. But such 
is certainly not the case; and Dr. Maxwell T. Masters, in his article “ Asclepiadez ” t, 
hazards the statement that it is derived “ from the separable inner lining of the anther- 
cell," probably referring to Brongniart’s view above cited. 
It is at once obvious that the pollen-grains subsequently formed in the special mother 
cells so enclosed cannot be dispersed in the ordinary way ; nor can the pollinia fallout of 
the open anthers spontaneously, but remain seated there undisturbed, so that pollination 
without foreign aid is impossible; and, moreover, the flower is so very peculiarly con- 
trived and adapted for the visits of insects in search of honey, that the pollinia are by 
their agency extracted and removed en masse from their place of origin, and applied by 
the same medium to.a distant part of another flower. 
Each special mother cell contains within its cuticularized wall a mass of protoplasmic 
contents, which have assumed a frothy condition owing to the presence of a number of 
vacuoles or oil-drops. 
In this protoplasm spherical granules are to be met with in considerable numbers, and 
a distinct nucleus may be detected. 
Very soon, however, by the aid of reagents, especially the aniline colour methyline- 
blue 1, a delicate thin transparent hyaline membrane or wall (in fig. 11) is found to clothe 
and to have been formed all over its surface by the protoplasm, which has in some cases, 
* < Lessons in Elementary Botany,’ р. 216. 
t Lindley and Moore's * Treasury of Botany." 
+ І owe the suggestion that I should make use of this staining reagent to my friend Mr. W. Gardiner, who has 
employed it largely in his researches on * the Continuity of the Protoplasm in the Motile Organs of Leaves," Proceed. 
Camb. Phil. Soc. vol. iv. pt. v. pp. 266-271; also Quart. Journ. Mic. Sci. К. 8. vol. xxii, no. 1хххуш. Oct. 1882, 
pp. 365, 366. 
