Osyris, Loranthus and Viscum. 203 



adopt the curious conclusions of M. Schleiden regarding the ordinary opinions 

 of the distinction of sexes. Neither do I conceive that those opinions can be 

 legitimately derived, until, at least, the total absence of an ovulum shall have 

 been ascertained. The female organ is still the organ of gestation, if we assign 

 the very lowest degree of value to it, which even the instance of Viscum, album, 

 as explained by M. Decaisne, does not at present authorize us to do. And 

 this would still have been the case, even though my first version of the phae- 

 noinena of Loranthus bicolor had proved to be correct. Neither am I at 

 all willing to imagine that the analogies between the animal and vegetable 



explain the fecundation of Asclepiadeee and ^Orchidece, and even adhered to, when a beautiful train of 

 reasoning and observation had reconciled them, in all the essential points, to the ordinary plan 1 . 



With regard to Marsilea, I have to remark that the observations of M. Fabre, as given by M. Dunal 

 (Ann. Sc. Nat., N. S., t. vii. p, 221), scarcely agree in one particular with some observations on a 

 Marsilea, I believe M. quadrifolia, made by myself at Bamo on the Irrawaddi in 1837. In the species 

 I then examined I found the organs to be of two distinct kinds, attached to the veins of the involucre. 

 Of these two kinds, one only is subsequently subjected to the usual ternary or quaternary division, 

 from which result bodies altogether similar to the acknowledged spore of other Acotyledonous fami- 

 lies. The other body has no analogy in my opinion to the acotyledonous form of anther. In M. Fabrei, 

 however, the females have been represented as having curious analogical resemblances to the Phaeno- 

 gamic pistillum ; and what is, perhaps, more extraordinary, the anthers are said to be simple sacs 

 containing granules and molecules, and apparently are similar to the pollen of certain Naiades, Balano- 

 phorece, Rafflesiacea, &c. 



In Isoetes the males of authors are nothing but modifications of the spore ; and in I. capsularis, 

 Roxb., they seem to be merely temporary modifications. They have, in fact, so precisely a common 

 development, that it is scarcely allowable to allot to them the performance of such opposite functions 

 as those usually attributed to them. The true male may, perhaps, be found in the cordiform, fleshy 

 lamina above the receptacle of the spores, from which it is separated by a lamina perhaps analogous 

 to the indusium. 



The transition between the two types exists in Anthoceros, which in the development of its anthers 



1 Nothing has been more detrimental than the writings of those "mere theoretical botanists," who 

 have advocated asexuality, as if it were the usual plan of Nature, and who have indignantly remonstrated 

 against those who have attempted to reconcile glaring inconsistencies. What has been the consequence ? 

 Instances of each of the higher Acotyledonous orders exist within the limits of Europe, but any precise 

 and comprehensive knowledge of them can scarcely be said to be within the limits of its natural science. 

 With the exception of Mosses, Hepatica and Pilularie, nothing is absolutely known of the real struc- 

 ture of these particular plants. And nothing can be more mischievous than the adoption of such terms 

 regarding these plants as Antheridia and Sporangium ; they have answered their purpose of checking 

 inquiry, by making believe that they are absolute or non-analogous organs. 



2 E 



VOL. XIX. 



