452 Proceedings of Philosophical Societies. [Dec. 



constant than the union of the antherae with each other. He pro- 

 mises us immediately his observations on the corolla, the ovarium, 

 the pericarpium, and the seed ; and as there can be no doubt that 

 he has bestowed the same attention on these researches as upon 

 those which he has already communicated, no family of plants will 

 be better known. Botany has every thing to expect from so skilful 

 an observer, when, after having studied a family so natural that it 

 may be almost considered as constituting only one great genus, he 

 shall exercise his sagacity on those equivocal families the varying 

 characters of which render their limits uncertain. 



Vegetable physiology, like all the other sciences, presents us with 

 difficult questions, of which nature furnishes us with no evident 

 solution, and which will long constitute the subjects of learned 

 discussions. 



Such, among others, is that respecting the existence of sexes in 

 the plants known by the name of cryptogamia. Many botanists, 

 discouraged by the difficulty of discovering organs in them, have 

 formed the opinion that these vegetables are destitute of sexes, and 

 are propagated by bulbs or simple buds, like certain animals, such 

 as the polypi, in which there can be no doubt that reproduction 

 takes place in this manner. Others, on the contrary, struck with 

 the complicated apparatus for reproduction in the fungi, musci, &c. 

 cannot believe that a mode of production so simple as by bulbs 

 should render necessary so various and numerous organs. They have 

 endeavoured in consequence to discover stamina, pollen, pistils, 

 seeds, embrios, and all the agents of fecundation so well known in 

 ordinary plants. But as there is no analogy of form, though they 

 agree as to the principle, they differ in its application. What one 

 takes for pollen another considers as seeds, and the. reverse ; so that 

 the sexualists (as they are called) have almost as many disputes with 

 each other as with the agamists, their common adversaries. 



We have already in our former reports given an account of several 

 of these discussions. They have been renewed this year in conse- 

 quence of a laborious work of M. Desvaux on the family of lvcopo- 

 diums. It is known that these plants (recently separated from the 

 other mosses by botanists) have a very combustible yellowish powder 

 in small capsules, well known by the" name of powder of lycopo- 

 dium, and often employed for various purposes. Its resemblance to 

 the powder of the antherae has induced M. de Beauvois to consider 

 it as true pollen. But according to some observers it does not burst 

 in water like pollen ; and all acknowledge that when sown in the 

 ground it grows, and produces lycopodiums. The first property not 

 being essential, M. de Beauvois ascribes the second to small glo- 

 bules, which he has observed in this powder, and which he con- 

 siders as small bulud or buds ; so that according to him it is not the 

 yellow powder which grows, but some of those buds which it is 

 impossible to separate from it. As to the true seeds which the 

 pollen is destined to fecundate, M. de Beauvois finds them in other 

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