LINNAEUS 83 



tion to fail. Another day I treated another flower in the same man- 

 ner; but, bringing a flower from a plant in a different part of the 

 garden, with which I sprinkled the pistillum of the mutilated one, its 

 germen became by that means fruitful. 



Ixia chinensis, flowering in my stove, the windows of which were 

 shut, all its flowers proved abortive. I therefore took one of its 

 antherae in a pair of pincers, and with them sprinkled the stigmata 

 of two flowers, and the next day one stigma only of a third flower; 

 the seed-buds of these flowers remained, grew to a large size and bore 

 seed, the fruit of the third, however, contained ripe seed only in one 

 of its cells. 



To relate more experiments would only be to fatigue the reader 

 unnecessarily. All nature proclaims the truth I have endeavored to 

 inculcate, and every flower bears witness to it. Any person may make 

 the experiment for himself with any plant he pleases, only taking care 

 to place the pot in which it is growing, in the window of a room suf- 

 ficiently out of reach of other flowers ; and I will venture to promise 

 him that he will obtain no perfect fruit unless pollen has access to the 

 pistillum. 



Logan's experiments on the Mays are perfectly satisfactory, and 

 manifestly show that the pollen does not enter the style, or arrive 

 at the germen, but that it is exhausted by the genital fluid of the 

 pistillum. And as in animals no conception can take place, unless the 

 genital fluid of the female be discharged at the same moment as 

 the impregnating liquor of the male; so in plants, generation fails, 

 unless the stigma be moist with prolific dew. 



Husbandmen know, by long experience, that if rain falls while rye 

 is in flower, by coagulating the pollen of its antherse, it occasions the 

 emptiness of many husks in the ear. 



Gardeners remark the same thing every year in fruit trees. Their 

 blossoms produce no fruit if they have unfortunately been exposed to 

 long-continued rains. 



Aquatic plants rise above the water at the time of flowering, and 

 afterwards again subside, for no other reason, than that the pollen 

 may safely reach the stigma. 



The white water-lily (Nymphaea alba) raises itself every morning 

 out of the water and opens its flowers, so that by noon at least three 

 inches of its flower-stalk may be seen above the surface. In the 



