18o6.] Vegetable Eejjroduction, etc. 



261 



late, some of our Ohio newspapers, have played many funny and fanci- 

 ul psalm-tunes ! If we (profanely ? ) ask what is the ground on which 

 this doctrine is founded? we are informed that there are well known 

 facts in the economy of vegetable life, which, combined with human 

 Jancy! speak str6ngly in favor of the presumption. For instance we 

 know that no seed capable of germination can be produced by those 

 flowers where either of the two organs, stamen or pistil, is missin<. We 

 also know that double flowers whose stamens are converted into leaves 

 are unable to produce seed. Again, no plant of the order of dicena 

 IS capable of producing seed, without having within its reach an indi- 

 vidual of Its kind bearing staminate flowers ; and. lastly, it often hap- 

 pens that nearly-related plants, flowering-side by side, produce bastards. 

 ±or these reasons it has been maintained that the male and the femalc- 

 the stamen and the pistillum-were united by a species of matrimonial 

 connection. Making further inquiry, it is asked-what is the modus 

 of their connubial affinities? By what means do they produce their 

 progeny? and this brings us, really, to the "previous question." To 

 this the botanist replies, that the pollen is the fructifying (fecundating.) 

 agent, by which the ovule, (egg) deposited in the ovary of the pistillum 

 IS fecundated, and the embryo formed. Then, how is this fecundation 

 made possible, and how does the pollen reach the ovule? To this ques- 

 tion botanical science has given various answers; and the various 

 explanations of this process agree in the fact, that the pollen must be 

 tnwght m contact with the stigma; this is efi-ected by various ac^encies, 

 the wind, ram drops, insects, etc. A peculiar secretion of the^stioma 

 serves to retain the pollen, and under the action of the moisture of this 

 secretion the pollen begins to grow, that is, to extend itself into a tube- 

 orm filament which penetrates into the loose cellular tissue composing 

 the interior of the pistillum. For this reason the cellular tissue has 

 been called "conducting tissue." Bragniard, the celebrated French 

 botanist, was of opinion that the pollen burst open in this conductino- 

 tissue there discharging its molecule contents, called fovilla. which 

 flows^ down to the ovule to fructify it. Eobert Brown found that the 

 tube.om filament of the pollen penetrates through the whole of the 

 conducting tissue, to the very brim of the ovule, at which point it bursts 

 to deliver Its fecundating fovilla. According to these views, we certainly 



oC% 'W'''i'''r '"^ ""'^^^^ ^^^^ '^' P^^«^^^« «f fecundation 

 obse ved in tke animal economy; and, with these views, the comparison 

 of the sexual characteristics of plants with those of animals, certainly 

 becomes quite appropriate and correct. 

 This opinion has long been held as a standing axiom in Botany by 



