18 MEYEN ON VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION 
M. Endlicher himself confesses that the anthers in Cryptogamia 
are the true male organs, I consider that it at once results from the 
similarity which the structure of the female organs in the Mosses, 
Hepatice and Chare, evinces to the pistil in the Phanerogamia, 
that too high an importance has been here assigned to the stig- 
matic fluid. The pistil of the Mosses has, with respect to form, 
the most surprising similarity with the normal pistils of the Pha- 
nerogamia ;—ovarium, style, and stigma may be distinguished 
on it. Inthe Chare the female organ exhibits only the ovarium, 
in which a single spore is situated, and immediately upon this 
is situated the stigma, the folds of which at the time of impreg- 
nation bend somewhat from each other, and thus leave a canal 
through which the fertilizing substance arrives immediately at 
the apex of the spore. In Mosses the anthers are mostly situated 
very close to the aperture of the pistil; and when they open, a 
portion of the seminal fluid must necessarily find its way into 
the cavity of the pistil; and it is almost exactly the same in a 
number of Hepatice. Impregnation, however, can here only 
take place by the dynamic action of the seminal fluid on that 
organ, which, generally of the form of a small globe, is situated 
on the base of the ovarium, and is subsequently developed in 
the seed-vessel. The spores are only developed in these organs 
some months after impregnation has occurred, and a direct con- 
tact of the fovilla with the spores never takes place in this case ; 
which, however, according to M. Endlicher’s view, should take 
place, in order that the spores might become capable of further 
development. 
But, properly speaking, M. Endlicher has advanced nothing 
further against the theory of generation hitherto entertained, 
than that the activity which the anthers exert in impregna- 
tion present not the least analogy with any one of the functions 
of the male sexual parts, in the various classes of the animal 
kingdom. I believe, however, that this objection is nevertheless 
not of such great importance. We find, for instance, in the va- 
rious classes of animals, that the sexual organs are very differently 
circumstanced, but that the mafe organs are always so formed 
that in order to attain their end, viz. the performance of im- 
pregnation, they correspond to the female. The male sexual 
organ is in animals sometimes very long, sometimes wanting; and 
it is undoubtedly just the same with the pollen-tubes, which we 
regard as the organ which conveys the fertilizing substance to 
