1883] 



MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 



I6S 



every object as if he were never to 

 behold it again. 



" Moreover, he must keep himself 

 free from haste and laziness, from 

 melancholy, testiness, pride, and all 

 the passions which make men see 

 only what they wish to see. Of sol- 

 emn and scrupulous reverence for 

 tsuth, of the habit of mind which re- 

 gards each fact and discovery, not as 

 his own possession, but as the pos- 

 session of its Creator, independent of 

 us, our tastes, our needs, or our vain 

 glory. And last, but not least, the 

 perfect naturalist should have in him 

 the very essence of true chivalry, 

 namely, self-devotion ; the desire to 

 advance, not himself and his own 

 fame or wealth, but knowledge and 

 mankind." 



"These qualities, however imper- 

 fectlv realized in any individual in- 

 stance, make our scientific men so 

 worthy. Men. for the most part with 

 manful heads and yf^t of childlike 

 hearts, who have turned to quiet 

 study in these piping times of peace ; 

 an intellectual health and courage 

 which might have made them, in more 

 fierce and troublous times, capable of 

 doing good service with very different 

 instruments than the scalpel and the 

 microscope." 



I might have added hints of my 

 own conception how association would 

 assist not only in the development of 

 such students, but how their good 

 qualities would be intensified. I need 

 not appeal to the sympathy of numbers, 

 to the strength of fellowship, to esprit 

 de corps, to healthy emulation, to the en- 

 couraging "excelsior " of companions, 

 to all that commends public schools, 

 universities, and even the every day 

 commercial associations, which, one 

 and all, take advantage of the power 

 which is inherent in association. 



Pollen-tubes. 



BY J. KRUTTSCHNITT. 



An article of mine on Pollen-tubes 

 appeared in the June number of your 

 Journal for 1882. 



Since then, I have corresponded 

 with some of the highest authorities 

 on Botanical Science, and have sub- 

 mitted some of my preparations to 

 them, with no result other than re- 

 ceiving a few complimentary notices 

 on the workmanship of my prepara- 

 tions. A gentleman in Hoboken has, 

 however, recently kindly placed in my 

 hands for examination a slide of a por- 

 tion of an ovary of Monotrapa with 

 the remark that the contact of a pol- 

 len-tube with the micropyle of the 

 ovule could be seen in it. The slide 

 did not show me what I was led to 

 expect ; but it furnished me with a clue 

 whereby the difference of opinion be 

 tween the text-books and myself, as to 

 the microscopical interpretation of the 

 pollen-tubes might be explained away. 



On the slide referred to, the struct- 

 ure — a flattened tubular fibre — seen 

 in contact with one of the ovules has 

 no feature in common with the pollen- 

 tubes as they appear on the stigma ; 

 I consider it an abnormal develop- 

 ment of a fibre of the conducting 

 tissue. Hofmeister in his works gives 

 a diagram of a similar structure, and 

 designates it a monstrous development 

 of a pollen-tube. 



The writings of Schacht and Sachs 

 which I have chiefly studied, teach 

 that the pollen-tubes after their emis- 

 sion on the stigma, penetrate into 

 the conducting tissue lining the styjar 

 canal, where it is said the tubes find 

 the material to vegetate and grow upon 

 until they reach the ovary, where the 

 conducting tissue again assists in 

 guiding the tubes to the micropyle of 

 the ovules. 



My long continued and varied ob- 

 servations, made with entire freedom 

 from traditional bias, have taught me 

 on the contrary that the pollen-tubes 

 after their emission on the stigma are 

 very soon lost amongst the papilla of 

 the stigma, where the fovilla they con- 

 tained is discharged, which, indeed, 

 may be traced in streaky and cloudy 

 aggregations in the midst of the con- 

 ducting tissue all along the style to 

 the head of the ovarian cavitv. At 



