BiogrwpMcal Memoir of Baron de Beauvois. 3 



ideas in botany, which formed the most constant object of his 

 researches during the rest of his life. The Linnaean system, 

 founded chiefly on the sex of plants, bad at this time given a 

 great activity to the study of the organs of fructification ; and 

 they were especially sought for with ardour in those rebel faml- 

 lies of fun^, mosses, and ferns, which Linnaeus had named 

 CryptogamoiLS, because neither stamina nor pistils could be 

 discovered in them. The opinion of that celebrated natura^ 

 list, who had considered the urns of the mosses as their an- 

 thers, no longer prevailed. In 1781, the Petersburg Aca- 

 demy had crowned a memoir by Hedwig, in which the urns 

 were, on the contrary, considered as capsules, and the green 

 powder which they contain as seeds ; while the stamina were 

 certain delicate filaments concealed in other parts of these plants. 

 Most botanists appeared disposed to adopt these new ideas. In 

 fact, the green powder, on being thrown on the earth by Hed- 

 wig, had germinated, and all that seemed to be wanting to the 

 system of that naturalist, was its being applied to some genera 

 to which he had not yet extended his observations. Notwith- 

 standing these favourable appearances, M. de Beauvois was not 

 satisfied with Hed wig's ideas, nor led away by the almost gene- 

 ral assent with which they were received. The heterodox sys- 

 tems of MM. de Necker and Medicus, who would have the 

 cryptogamic plants grow by a kind of spontaneous generation, 

 ctr organic crystallization, were still less to his mind. Om7ie 

 animal ex ovo, his master Linnasus had said, after Harvey, and 

 whoever pretended to seek another origin for life, was in his 

 eyes a blasphemer. Now the e^, added he, requires to be fe- 

 cundated. Thus, not only have all plants seeds, but they have 

 all stamina, or at least pollen, in order to fecundate these seeds. 

 Such was M. de Beauvois's reasoning; and it was in accordance 

 with this reasoning that he directed his observations, feeling as- 

 sured, that, by patient investigation^ he would discover what he 

 thought demonstration had disclosed beforehand. He believed, 

 in fact, that his hopes would speedily be realized. 



The first cryptogftmic plants in which he perceived organs 

 which he tonsidered as male and female, were the fungi, and 

 especially the hydna, or those mushrooms whose pileus is bristled 



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