LINNAEUS 79 



iiowers are furnished with stamina only, and others only with pistilla ; 

 it is altogether impossible that stamina situated at so very great 

 a distance from the fruit, as on a different branch, or perhaps on a 

 separate plant, should serve to convey any impurities from the embryo. 



No physiologist could demonstrate, a priori, the necessity of the 

 masculine fluid to the rendering the eggs of animals prolific, but 

 experience has established it beyond a doubt. We therefore judge 

 a posteriori principally, of the same effect in plants. 



In the month of January, 1760, the Antholyza Gunonia flowered 

 in a pot in my parlour, but produced no fruit, the air of the room not 

 being sufficiently agitated to waft the pollen to the stigma. One 

 day, about noon, feeling the stigma very moist, I plucked off one 

 of the antherae, by means of a fine pair of forceps, and gently rubbed 

 it on one part of the expanded stigmata. The spike of flowers re- 

 mained eight or ten days longer ; when I observed, in gathering the 

 branch for my herbarium, that the fruit of that flower only on which 

 the experiment had been made, had swelled to the size of a bean. 

 I then dissected this fruit and discovered that one of the three cells 

 contained seeds in considerable number, the other two being entirely 

 withered. 



In the month of April I sowed the seeds of hemp (Cannabis) in 

 two different pots. The young plants came up so plentifully, that 

 each pot contained thirty or forty. I placed each by the light of a 

 window, but in different and remote apartments. The hemp grew 

 extremely well in both pots. In one of them I permitted the male 

 and female plants to remain together, to flower and bear fruit, 

 which ripened in July, being macerated in water, and committed to 

 the earth, sprung up in twelve days. From the other, however, I re- 

 moved all the male plants, as soon as they were old enough for me 

 to distinguish them from the females. The remaining females grew 

 very well, and presented their long pistilla in great abundance, 

 these flowers continuing a very long time, as if in expectation of 

 their mates; while the plants in the other pot had already ripened 

 their fruit, their pistilla having, quite in a different manner, faded 

 as soon as the males had discharged all their pollen. It was truly 

 a beautiful and truly admirable spectacle to see the unimpregnated 

 females preserve their pistilla so long green and flourishing, not 

 permitting them to begin to fade till they had been for a very con- 



