1856.] Vegetable Reproduction, etc. 265 



those most skilled in Botany, have cou firmed the doctrine of Schleiden, 

 which is now, we think, universally received. Obstinacy or ignorance, 

 perhaps both, have prompted some to reject and denounce it in a manner 

 as ridiculous as it is to boast of a patent knowledge of male and female 

 plants ! But one objection arises against it seemingly quite independent, 

 viz. : If the pollen is not the fecundating agent, but the embryo-forming 

 organ, deposited in the seed-bud, (ovule) how are we to explain the 

 bastard production of nearlj-'related plants ? 



To understand this phenomenon in its true light, we must bear in 

 mind what was before remarked concerning the process by which the 

 pollen, extending itself into a long filament, proceeds through the 

 cellular, or conducting, tissue to the seed-bud, or ovule. It was stated 

 that it penetrates the loose cellular tissue of the pistillum — and here it 

 should be remembered that the way is often, comparatively, a long one — 

 and more or less time must elapse before the utricule of the pollen 

 arrives at the opening of the seed-bud. In this course, though long and 

 protracted it may be, the membrane of the filament never diminishes in 

 thickness nor strength, but rather increases. It is, therefore, not to be 

 doubted that it is nourished by the secretion of the conducting tissue. 

 This nutrition is eiSPected by a process of intussusception. And here 

 it is to be remembered, that no cell-membrane can be nourished by the 

 secretion of the cells of another plant without having its contents and 

 nature changed ; and thus new compounds and formations are originated. 

 In this manner it is, that the infinitely diversified bastard formations, 

 so continually occurring, are produced. If we desire to secure a process 

 of fecundation in vegetables at all, we must seek for it in this direction. 

 In that case, the conducting tissue of the pistillum, being the source of 

 nutrition, would become the fecundating organ, and the pollen would be 

 the part fecundated, whereby, indeed, the male plant becomes the 

 female. This, we know, is widely at variance with the old doctrine of 

 the sexual characteristics of plants ; but we deem it the true doctrine, 

 and feel assured that it is fortified by unquestionable facts in the phe- 

 nomena of vegetable reproduction. 



And one fact in this connection should here be mentioned : AYe have no 

 good reason to presume that nature has ordained any law over either single 

 or double-housed plants, by which they are absolutely forced to produce 

 one kind of fructifying organs and no other. It is true, however, that 

 plants generally pursue a given order of succession in the manner of 

 developing their fructifying organs. Yet many instances are known 

 where outward circumstances have brought about a marked irregularity 

 in this particular. Two of our well known double-housed plants, the 



