252 KUNCTIOXS OV 



eral organs are sometimes brought to perfection in differ- 

 ent flowers at different times, so that the anthers of one 

 may impregnate the stigmas of another, whose stamens 

 were abortive, or long since withered. The same thing; 

 happens in oilier instances. Linnaeus mentions the Ja- 

 tropha wens as producing flowers with stamens some 

 weeks in general before or after the others. Hence he 

 obtained no seed till he preserved the pollen a month or 

 more in paper, and scattered it on a few stigmas then in 

 perfection. There can be no do bt that, in a wild state, 

 some or other of the two kinds of blobsoms are ripe to- 

 gether, throughout the flowering season, on different 

 trees. 



A similar experiment to that just mentioned was made 

 in 1749 upon a Ptim-tiee at Berlin, which for want of 

 pollen had never brought any fruit to perfection. A 

 branch of barren flowers was sent by the post from Leip- 

 sic, twenty German miles distant, and suspended over the 

 pistils. Consequently abundance of fruit was ripened, 

 and many young plants raised from the seeds.* 



* What species of Palm was the subject of this experiment 

 does not clearly appear. In the original communication to Dr. 

 Watson, printed in the preface of Lee's Introduction ta Botany, 

 it is called Palma major foliis fab elliformibus^ which seems ap- 

 propriate to Rafihis flabellifjrmis, Jit. Hort. Keiv. i>. 3. 473 ; yet 

 Linnaeus, in his dissertation on this subject, expressly calls it 

 P.cenix dactylifera, the Date Palm, and says he had in his gar- 

 den many vigorous plants raised from a portion of the seeds 

 above mentioned. The great success of the experiment, and 

 the « fan shaped" leaves, makes me rather take it for the Rhti 

 fiis,a. plant not well known to Linnaeus. 



