84 FLOWERLESS PLANTS. [BOOK i. 



The late Mr. Griffith may be regarded as the most ex- 

 perienced modern botanist who has supported the sexuality of 

 flowerless plants ; and, therefore, in justice to so great an ob- 

 server, I cannot do less than quote his words from an excellent 

 paper in the Nineteenth Volume of the Linnaan Transactions. 



"The question of the sexuality of Acotyledonous plants 

 is so intimately connected with the subject of vegetable em- 

 bryology, that I trust I shall be pardoned for hazarding a 

 few observations derived from personal experience. 



The more developed Acotyledonous plants, which I take 

 to be Filices, Lycopodinese, Isoetes, Marsilea, Salvinia, Azolla, 

 Hepatic&e, and Musci, appear to me to present two very dis- 

 tinct types of organisation, at least, as regards the female 

 organ. In one type there is an evident pistillum containing 

 an ovulum, and this appears to be generally connected with 

 limited development of the organs of vegetation. In the 

 other there is no evident pistillum, nor any palpable point 

 on which analogy would indicate that the male influence 

 would be exerted. That type is also remarkable for the de- 

 velopment of the organs of vegetation. 



In Musci, the evidence of the mutual action of the sexes, 

 appears to me very satisfactory ; the usual discoloration of 

 the stigma and canal of the style is distinctly observable, and 

 is followed by changes, confined, however, to change of situa- 

 tion, affecting the cell pre-existing in the cavity of the ova- 

 rium, and which is analogous to a Phaenogamous ovulum. In 

 Hepaticae, particularly the vaginulate species, the circum- 

 stances would appear to be the same ; and in the evaginulate 

 ones, and, perhaps, also in Kiccia, still nearer approaches are 

 made by the changes which the pre-existing cell undergoes 

 to the ovulum of Phsenogamous plants. 



In the Azolla I have examined, which is the only other 

 plant which appears to me pistilligerous, (he had at that time 

 no knowledge of the development of Salvinia), the pistilla in 

 each involucre are two, and both present the appearance so 

 generally characteristic of fertilisation. The changes subse- 

 quent to this are, however, very different, giving rise in one 

 pistillum to the supposed male, in the other to a series of 

 sporules derived from the characteristic dividing process. 



