THE ANGIOSPERMAE 



1255 



teenth century. Nearly half a century later it was still possible to question 

 its sexual significance. 



The first person to publish records of experiments on the necessity 

 for pollination and to distinguish the anthers as the male parts and the 

 carpels as the female parts of the flower was Rudolph Jacob Camerarius 

 (1665-1721). He thus gave a scientific foundation to the doctrine of sexua- 

 lity in plants, but the erroneous notions regarding the nature of ferti- 

 lization which prevailed until long after his day prevented the general 

 understanding or acceptance of his views. He raised the question whether 

 cross-fertilization is possible between two different species of plants, 

 but the question was not answered until the work of Joseph Gottlieb 

 Koelreuter (i 733-1 806) (Fig. 1202), whose publications: " Vorlaiifige 

 Nachricht von einigen das Geschlecht der Pflanzen betreffenden Versuchen 

 und Beobachtungen" appeared between 

 1760 and 1770. He studied the manner 

 in which pollination must take place 

 in order to be effective. He also first 

 recognized the general importance of 

 insects as natural pollinators, though 

 he thought them secondary in import- 

 ance to the wind. He observed dicho- 

 gamy (see below) in the hermaphro- 

 dite flowers of Epilohium and, most 

 important of all, he created a number 

 of inter-specific hybrids and showed 

 that the offspring shared the characters 

 of both parents. 



These, however important, were 

 discoveries relating to fertilization 

 rather than to pollination as such, and 

 the founder of floral biology in the 

 present sense was undoubtedly Konrad Sprengel (1750-18 16), who turned 

 his attention to Koelreuter's neglected observations on the part played by 

 insects in pollination and made a most remarkable series of discoveries, 

 which he published as " Das Neu-entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur im Bau 

 undinderBefruchtungderBlumen ", in 1793. He not only showed the pre- 

 valence of dichogamy in hermaphrodite flowers but unravelled many of the 

 pollination mechanisms which since his day have become familiar to bota- 

 nists. He is said to have been personally eccentric and this, combined with 

 the surprising novelty of his ideas, led to the neglect of his work by his con- 

 temporaries. It was not indeed recognized at its real value until Darwin's 

 day. The principles of interpretation which he established still serve us for 

 the understanding of flowers as functioning mechanisms, though his teleo- 

 logical deductions are out of date. 



Among the principal contributors to the knowledge of pollination since 

 Sprengel may be mentioned, in the first place, Charles Darwin himself, 



Fig. 1202. — Joseph Gottlieb Koelreuter. 



