22 MEYEN ON VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION 
near the apex, and appear to differ from the mass of the albu- 
men in colour as well as consistence. Robert Brown further 
observed, that a distinct embryonal funiculus existed in each of 
these so-called corpuscles ; and that accordingly the plurality of 
embryos which might be observed in the Conifere, depended on 
the regular structure of the albumen. These interesting obser- 
vations of Mr. Robert Brown were certainly the most satisfac- 
tory proofs that some deception had occurred in the observations 
which M. Corda soon afterwards published on the impregnation 
of the ovule in the red fir*. 
Recently M. Horkel has made public his observations on the 
polyembryony of the Conifere +, being induced to do so by 
Treviranus’s assertion that he had not been able to find either 
in Pinus sylvestris, or in Abies excelsa, anything of that which 
Robert Brown had published on the subject. The observations of 
M.Horkel are in general coincident with those of Brown, but he 
found in Pinus Cembra, besides the developed embryo, only two 
abortive rudiments. The corpuscles in the albumen M. Horkel 
terms small cavities, which he had already noticed in Abies ex- 
celsa in 1819. The funiculi (Brown), or the embryo bearers, 
with their rudimentary embryos, he observed in those plants to 
lie parallel and near to one another in the great cavity originat- 
ing in the centre of the albumen; their number was usually 
three, rarely four; but he never observed more than one to be 
developed into an embryo. In Taxus the numberof the embryonal 
rudiments is no longer so regular—two, three, and even four were 
noticed; but in this instance the formation of the apex of the 
so-called albumen is likewise no longer so regular as in Pinus, 
&c., for M. Horkel observed here, at times, only one corpuscle. 
I would still make a small addition to these admirable obser- 
vations of the above masters of this science, and beg to be 
allowed to make the following remarks. Robert Brown and Hor- 
kel call the solid body which is formed in the Conifere within the 
nucleus at the time of impregnation the albumen; according to 
my observations on Adies excelsa, on the Larch, &c., it consists 
of an opake substance, which presents about the firmness of a 
young gelatinous cartilage; I have never been able to observe 
that this substauce is developed into albumen in the interior 
* Nova Acta Acad. C. L. C., tom.. xvii. p. 599. 
t Bericht der Konigl. Acad. zu Berlin, 1839, p. 92; Magazine and Annals 
of Nat. Hist., vol. vii., p. 173. 
