SCIENTIFIC MEMOIRS. 
VOL. III.—PART IX. 
ARTICLE I, 
A few words on the act of Impregnation and on Polyembryony in 
the higher Plants. By the late Dr. F. J. F. Meyen, Pro- 
_ fessor of Botany in the University of Berlin*. 
[Published as a separate Work. Berlin, 1840.] 
PREFACE. 
IT is but too well known that new views generally meet with 
-a more or less warm reception, and frequently prevail for a 
length of time, even although the greatest difficulties are op- 
posed to their establishment ; this is so well known, that we 
need not be astonished that new hypotheses, which have lately 
been advanced on the formation of the embryo in plants, and 
which aim at no less than the overthrow of our long-established 
and well-grounded views respecting the sexes of plants, have 
been adopted in so many quarters with such great applause ; 
I mean the hypotheses published by MM. Schleident+ and 
Endlichert for the purpose of correcting the views hitherto 
entertained respecting the sexes and generation of plants. 
Although these hypotheses are not entirely new, and the 
principal view has already been refuted in several older works, 
yet they did not cause such great sensation in former times; 
although even then their publication excited a controversy 
which was carried on with great vehemerce. 
I have already in another work§ treated at length of the new 
* Translated and communicated by Mr. William Francis, A.L.S. 
+ Of which a translation was published in the Philosophical Magazine, vol. 
xii, p. 172. 
t Sketch of a New Theory of the Production of Plants. Vienna, 1838. 
§ New System of Vegetable Physiology. Berlin, 1839. 
VOL. III. PART IX. B 
