OF SANTALUM ALBUM. 77 
strated to take place in some of the lower plants. I pass over the numerous discoveries 
that have been made of late years in the higher Cryptogamia, from the Marsileaceæ to 
the Liverworts, showing the pre-existence of a germ, and its fertilization by spermatozoids. 
I may refer to my own publications on this subject elsewhere*. The cases most imme- 
diately interesting to me in this instance are those described by Thuret in the Fucaceæ, 
already repeated by Pringsheim, and the researches of the latter and of Cohn on certain 
filamentous Confervoids. According to the elaborate investigations of Thuret+ the 
spores of Fucus are discharged from the Spore-sacs as globules of protoplasmic substance, 
bounded by the structure denominated by Von Mohl the primordial utricle, without a 
cellulose coat. While swimming free in the water, spermatozoids come in contact with 
them in large numbers, and after a certain time a cellulose coat is developed upon the 
surface of the spore; the latter thus becomes encysted, and forms a true cell, which then 
germinates, to produce a new plant. Pringsheimt describes essentially analogous pheno- 
mena as occurring (inside the parent-cells) in Vaucheria, and Cohn’s$ account of the 
fecundation of the spores of Sphæroplea also agrees with these. 
These facts, together with those I have brought forward in this paper, tend to prove 
that the process of impregnation in plants consists in the absolute admixture of the pro- 
toplasmic substance of two cells (*male” and * female"); of which the female (or 
germinal) substance or body always pre-exists in the form of a nucleus or * protoplast,” 
while the male (or spermatic) substance exists in the form of a granulose fluid. In the 
Flowering Plants the spermatic fluid is conveyed directly into the embryo-sac by the 
channel of the pollen-tube; a similar process appears to exist in the conjugation of the 
lower Algæ; in other cases the spermatic fluid is conveyed from organs situated at a 
distance from the parent-cell of the germinal vesicle, by the agency of locomotive struc- 
tures (spermatozoids) developed in the spermatic cells, bathed in and discharged with 
their contents, and themselves composed of the nitrogenous protoplasmic matter of cell- 
contents. 
In my Memoir on Orchis Morio||, I described the nascent germinal vesicles as cells. 
Hofmeister and others in like manner call them cells; but comparison of my older draw- 
ings and those of Hofmeister with new observations, leads me to believe that, on careful 
examination, these bodies will be found to consist of nuclei or “ protoplasts” before fertili- 
zation. I may note in reference to this, that I have already some confirmation from 
another case besides Santalum, and I trust to bring forward hereafter more complete 
evidence on the subject. 
Jan. 30, 1856. 
; : ay tions, 
* Report of the British Association, 1851; Annals of Natural History, 2 ser. ix. p. 441 ; Linnean Transactions 
xxi. p.117. 
| ; . March 1855. 
+ Ann. des Sciences nat. 4 * ser. ii. p. 197. t Een er en å 
$ Bericht Berlin Akad. May 1855. : | . Trans. xxi. p. 7. ES 
: for inqui 
Y Certain circumstances which I observed in the archegonia of the F ue uni onis gn Rd: Rr de 
‘whether the parent-cell of the germinal vesicle is not open at a certam period eide ser rd dé the Devo- 
Spermatozoids to a naked nucleus. See especially the figures 56, 57, 63-70 of plate = r 
lopment of Ferns (Linn. Trans. xxi. p. 117). 
