264: Vegetable Reproduction, etc. [June, 



In the one case, the cells destined to the reproduction, are at once 

 scattered on the earth or in the water where the new plants are to grow. 

 Then either the whole cell is gradually transformed into a new plant, 

 new cells originating in it and taking its place, in these others, and so 

 on ; which is the case in the Algge, Fungi, Lichens, and part of the 

 Liver-Mosses ; or, the cell expands into a longish utricle or tube, but 

 only one extremity of this tube becomes filled with cells, which gradu- 

 ally grow up into a new plant, the remaining portion of the cell, mean- 

 while, decaying; this is the case in the remaining Liver-Mosses, the 

 Mosses, the Ferns. Lycopodia, and Horse-tails. An example of this 

 kind of development may be found in every hot-house containing ferns, 

 for they may almost always be found germinating." =•••= =••• '■■' " In those 

 plants which, with Liungeus, we call Phasnogamia, or evident-flowered, 

 the matter is differently arranged. The reproductive cells, which are 

 here called pollen, are formed in peculiarly metamorphosed leaves, the 

 stamens. But other organs, beside the stamens, are found, either in 

 the blossom of the same plant, or of another individual of the same 

 species. These consist essentially of hollow and generally pear-shaped 

 bodies, which have a small opening at the upper end. A body of this 

 kind is called the germen, and the orifice the stigma. In the cavity 

 occur little protuberances formed of cellular tissue, the seed-buds, to 

 which the very inappropriate name of ovules was formerly given. In 

 each of the seed-buds is one very large cell, called the embryo-sac. At 

 the flowering period the pollen falls upon the stigma, and then com- 

 mences the development of the reproductive cells. Each one extends 

 itself into a long filament, exactly as in the Cryptogamia. and in this 

 form penetrates to the cavity of the germen, to enter one of the seed- 

 buds, and finally, into the embryo-sac. The extremity which has 

 passed in, now becomes filled with cells, and these develop forthwith 

 into a perfect, though as yet, simple and minute, plantule, the so-called 

 embryo or germ. Simultaneously with the development of the polien- 

 cell into the embryo, the seed-bud is perfected into a seed, the germen 

 into the fruit." 



The truth and reality of these views of Schleiden, concerning the 

 fructifying process of the vegetable economy, had, naturally, to undergo 

 the sternest scrutiny and severest ordeals before Botany would recognise 

 it; because it boldly assailed, and, if adopted, would entirely overthrow 

 a mighty stronghold of the science as received, and which no one, in 

 the course of centuries, had had the temerity to attack. Yet every one 

 acquainted with the literature and spirit of Botany, as the science of 

 the present day, knows that the most precise and skillful researches of 



