THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY 



[SECOND SERIES.] 

 No. 118. OCTOBER 1857. 



XXIII. — The Process of Fecundation in the Vegetable Kingdom, 

 and its relation to that in the Animal Kingdom. By Dr. L. 

 Radlkofer*. 



Sect. I. The Regular Propagation of Plants, and the Organs 

 devoted to it. 



After the existence of different organs^ whose cooperation for 

 the production of the rudiment of a new vegetable individual 

 appeared to be a necessary condition^had been demonstrated in one 

 series of the plants long regarded as Asexual — the Cryptogamia 

 of Linnseus, — it was natural that the question should press itself 

 upon the minds of naturalists, whether or not a sexual process 

 of propagation was not connected with the maintenance of the 

 species, in all departments of the Vegetable Kingdom, either 

 occurring by itself, or in company with other contrivances for 

 attaining a similar end, — I mean the multiplication of plants by 

 division and gemmation, through the individualization of cells 

 or groups of cells. 



Many who had entertained the question had also arrived at 

 the conviction that it must be answered in the affirmative ; and 

 they were not behindhand even in finding out the required 

 sexual organs in the said plants. But their efforts served for 

 the most part only to verify the words with which Montague 

 commences the account of his observations on the multiplication 

 of the Characese : " The sciences of observation, and natural 

 history in particular, present in their study this remarkable cir- 

 cumstance, that we scarcely ever arrive, at the first onset, at the 

 aim which we propose to attaint-'' Now, however, reliable ob- 



* Leipsic, 1857, 8vo. Translated by Arthur Henfrey, F.R.S. &c. 

 t Ann. des Sc. nat. 3 ser. xviii. p. 65. 

 Ann. ^ Mag. N, Hist. Ser. 2. Vol.yiJi, 16 



