238 POLLEN ANALOGOUS TO SPORES. [BOOK n. 



plant is nothing but a female ovarium, and each grain of 

 pollen the germ of a new individual. On the other hand, the 

 embryo-sac only works potentially, determining the organis- 

 ation and development of the material foundation ; and for 

 this reason, therefore, ought to be termed a male principle, 

 were we not to consider, perhaps more correctly (without 

 embarrassing ourselves with lame analogies taken from the 

 animal kingdom), that the embryo- sac merely conveys new 

 organisable fluids by means of transudation, and thus only 

 serves the office of nourishment. 



" In the next place, the process of development of the 

 embryo, as already described,, easily establishes the analogy 

 of Phanerogamous plants and those Cryptogamic plants in 

 which the spores are evident conversions of the cellular tissue 

 of the foliaceous organs or leafy expansions; for the same 

 part furnishes the groundwork of a new plant in both groups, 

 and the only difference existing between the two is this ; in 

 Phanerogamse a previous formative process in the interior of 

 the plant precedes a period of latent vegetation, whilst in 

 Cryptogamse the spore (the grain of pollen) developes 

 itself as a plant without previous preparation. Difficulties 

 nevertheless occur here in the consideration of Mosses and 

 Hepaticae, and more particularly in the enigmatical Mar- 

 sileacese." These statements have now been copiously illus- 

 trated by excellent figures in Schleiden's memoir Ueber 

 Bildung des Eichetis, und Entstehung des Embryos bei den 

 Phanerogamen. 



The opinion of Endlicher is to a certain extent that of 

 Schleiden ; that is to say, he considers what we call pollen 

 analogous to the spores of Cryptogamic plants, and conse- 

 quently the anther a female organ, whose contents perform 

 an act similar to that of germination, when they fall upon 

 the stigma; he does not, however, with Schleiden, assign a 

 male influence to the sac of the amnios, but he attributes 

 that property to the stigmatic papillae, whose moisture lubri- 

 cates the grains of pollen when they fall upon them.* I 



* See Qrundzuge einer neuen Theorie der Pflanzenzeigung. Professor Wydler 

 of Berne, also, insists upon the pollen being the female apparatus, and he denies 

 that plants have two sexes. (RechercJies sur V Ovule, &c., des Scrofulaires.) These 



