52 SYLVA AMERICANA. 



are come out. The male hemp never sheds its dust before the 

 pistils of the female plant appear. 



4. Cells. If we cut asunder the anthers before they shed 

 their dust, we find their structure altogether as wonderful and 

 curious as the seed vessels themselves. For, within thev consist 

 either of one cell, as the mercury ; or, two, as the hellebore ; or 

 three, as the orchis, &x. 



5. Castration. If we cut off the anthers of any plant which 

 bear but one flower, taking care at the same time that no other 

 plant of the same species is near it, the fruit proves abortive, or 

 at least produces seeds which will not vegetate. This is a cer- 

 tain truth, which any one will find upon trial. 



6. Figure. The figure of the fertilizing dust, will clearly 

 convince any one, that this fine powder is not accumulated by 

 chance, or from the dryness of the anthers. Malpighi, Grew 

 and others, who had viewed the figure of these particles with 

 good microscopes, found all the particles exactly equal to one 

 another, but in different genera, as great a difference in shape 

 and figure, as the seeds themselves. As for example, in the 

 sunflower, the particles are globular and prickly ; in the mallows 

 they appear like wheels with teeth ; in the ricinus, or palma 

 Christi, they are shaped like a grain of wheat, flat and smooth ; 

 in the borage like a thin leaf rolled up ; in the narcissus, kidney- 

 shaped ; in the comfrey, like double globules. The powder of 

 the anthers, in regard to fecundation, answers to Leuwenhoek's 

 animalcules in the male sperm ; and the stigma, which receives 

 this dust, is always moist, that the dust may instantly adhere to it. 

 The observation of the famous Jussieu, concerning the maple, 

 deserves our notice. " Those gentlemen," says he, " who have 

 examined the fertilizing dust of the maple by microscopes, have 

 drawn the particles in the form of across." From which obser- 

 vation we may infer, that those particles are hollow globules, con- 

 taining some subtle matter within, that as soon as the hollow 

 globules touch the moisture, they burst, and discharge their ex- 

 ceedingly fine contents. This last observation throws some light 

 on the generation of animals, from its analogy to the seminal an- 

 imalcules. Upon the whole, it abundantly appears, that the 



