82 On the Fructification of Seeds. 
its conveying down the joint juices of the pollen and pistil mat- 
ters, when they saw and acknowledged the rising of the juice of 
the pistil to the stigma in that beautiful drop before impregna- 
tion. Would not the same trough serve the purpose for the fall- 
ing liquid, that it did for the rising one? And yet all botanists 
acknowledge the first, but many deny the last, and believe that 
there is room for the pistil juice, and not for the same when the 
pollen powder is dissolved in it, though the style is then infinitely 
increased and inflated. 
The flower, let it be ever so various in appearance, is invariable 
in having the summit and style (if it has any) above the seed- 
vessel (see fig. 2); and in these parts being in one connected 
pillar with the secret nectary; while the open nectary is always 
at the exterior of the pillar, but standing perfectly aloof. If the 
stamens appear united with the pistil, itis only so to appearance ; 
they are never fastened but to a skin which is connected with 
the cylinder below, and carries on the vessels of the stamen to 
the wood part, and only lies against the pistil. Such is the 
stamen of theg Auilegia, (see fig. 3,) and the stamens of the 
Malva and Viola, &c. which I have not room to give. The 
pistil is then unconnected with every other part, but those just 
mentioned. The stamens when ripe throw their pollen by many 
different methods on the stigma. ‘The various forms of the pistil 
proclaim that it was made to receive, secure and dissolve the 
powder so bestowed. The stigma is either covered with innu- 
merable short thick hairs, which to the eye give it the appear- 
ance of velvet, but when greatly magnified, show that each vessel 
has several apertures to take in the powder, while the points se- 
cure the balls of the stamen, till they burst with the moisture of 
the pistil. The dust is then received into these innumerable 
apertures, which empty themselves into the interior in a gutter, 
which runs all down the style to the seeds. 
But if the stigma, instead of resembling the pistil of the Co- 
lumbine, is like the flower of some of the Tetradynamia silicu- 
losa order, then the stigma swells above, so as to overtop the 
style, as in the Iberis Erysimum, (fg. 4.) &c. while the nume- 
rous corresponding apertures take in the powder at ddd, and 
send it when dissolved down to the seeds, (see fig. 4.) In the 
Chelidonium, a gutter is carried! round below the surface, which 
receives all the juice the hairs bring it, as at fig. 5. (aa) in re- 
gular rows; and the whole centre is one deep trench in the mid- 
die, by which, there being no style, the juice is at once carried 
in three regular cuts down to the seeds. In the Cheiranthus, 
the seed-vessel being a sort of flattened triangle (fig. 2); the 
summit at 2 XX has a bending in the middle ; the large orifice 
is therefore in the centre only: while at fig. 2. aa is the summit ; 
bi 
