44 THE MICROSCOPICAL NEWS. 
inner side of the ovary wall, while the other is lying free at 
the centre, or in the vicinity of the centre of the section. By first 
examining the section with an ordinary lens, then with a low power 
of the microscope, and finally a representative portion of the 
structure, with such a power as that under which the accompanying 
drawing was made,* a comprehensive knowledge of the whole will 
be gained with a little study. Imbedded in the ovary wall, and 
opposite the origin of each placenta will be seen a section of a 
fibrovascular tissue cord, which has been cut across. ‘These twigs 
carry upwards the nourishing sap to the growing ovules; the 
cords being in direct structural connection below with a similar 
system, which ramifies throughout the entire poppy plant. The 
placentze are principally made up of a rather loose cellular tissue, 
through which, however, run tiny lateral offshoots from the parietal 
fibro-vascular cord, and which themselves send off laterally into the 
funicle of each ovule, a very fine twig to conveniently supply, as 
beforesaid, the growing embryos with assimilated sap. 
The section represents the ovary at a time prior to that of the 
fertilisation of the ovules, but before describing the act of fertilisa- 
tion, it will be necessary to learn that the ovule proper is invested 
in a double coat, everywhere continuous excepting over a spot 
which is opposite to the sub-epidermal embryo-sac; here an 
inconspicuous opening is left, which, in botanical terminology, is 
known as the mzcropyle. ‘Then, when the female element is ready 
to be fertilised, the stigma “ripens,” that is, it fully extends itself, 
becomes sticky, or otherwise prepares itself for the reception of 
the free-moving male element, or pollen. After the pollen reaches 
the stigma—and the conveying agent may be the wind, insects, or 
simply gravitation—it immediately begins to grow by sending out 
a tube, bounded by the extended inner covering which, on first 
lengthening, bursts through the outer and corky coat of the grain. 
The growing tube pushes itself into the substance of the stigma, 
and continuing its growth downwards, enters the cavity of the 
ovary. Here it finds an ovule, and, entering it by way of the 
micropyle, the end of the tube carrying the sperm substance soon 
approaches the germ mass and fertilises it. After this act the 
fertilised mass begins to grow, and, fed by its parent, eventually 
develops itself into a new individual, while, at the same time, the 
ovule is being gradually transformed into a seed, and the ovary 
into a fruit. 
The constitutional vigour of the seedling, its own inherent 
reproductive powers to be afterwards displayed, the number of 
seeds produced, and such-like important matters bearing upon the 
plant’s vitality, depend largely upon the comparative relationships 
* A beautiful chromo lithograph illustrates the original article. 
