268 Professor Henslow's Examination 



Examination of the internal structure of the Organs 

 of Fructification. 



Before I begin the detail of this examination, I may at once 

 state, that so far as I have hitherto been enabled to pursue it, 

 I have not perceived the slightest difference between the internal 

 structures of the three plants; and as their organization is some- 

 what different from any of the cases selected by Mons. A. Brogniart 

 to illustrate his paper on the formation and developement of the 

 embryo, the present attempt may not be without some general 

 interest to the physiologist, independent of the objects connected 

 with the particular enquiry for which it has been undertaken. 

 The method which I pursued was always to examine the various 

 parts dissected, first, in specimens of purpurea, and then to corn- 

 compare them with the like parts in hybrida, and lutea. Though 

 it is possible therefore that I may accidentally have overlooked 

 some defect and dissimilarity in the internal structure of the 

 hybrid during this common and simultaneous examination of all 

 the three, and may have represented in the drawings some ap- 

 pearance or other strictly belonging only to the anatomy of pur- 

 purea, yet I do not think such an error could very probably 

 have occurred. As the main object in view was the direct 

 comparison of the three plants, any striking difference at least 

 would have been noticed, and the subject have been submitted 

 to a rigorous re-examination. 



Vessels of the Pistil. Plate xvn. Fig. 1. represents a longi- 

 tudinal section of the ovarium perpendicular to the dissepiment, 

 and consequently passing through both the cells; and Fig. 2. is 

 another longitudinal section, at right angles to the last, and through 

 the plane of the dissepiment, or rather, it represents the surface 



