SECT. III. INDUCTION OF PARTICULAR PROOFS. 325 



flowers were ready to discharge the pollen, it was 

 collected by means of shaking the panicle with the 

 finger over a piece of paper, till the paper was 

 covered with a fine yellow powder. The pollen 

 thus obtained was immediately carried to the female 

 plants, which were growing in another part of the 

 garden, and sprinkled over them ; in consequence of 

 which they now produced perfect seeds. 



But the best example of this kind yet exhibited 

 is that of the famous experiment of Linnaeus upon 

 the Berlin and Leipsic Palms. About the period of 

 the foregoing experiment, or rather a few years prior 

 to it, there grew at Berlin an individual female 

 Palm-tree which had never perfected any fruit, so as 

 that the seeds would germinate ; while there grew 

 at the same time, at Leipsic, a male plant of the 

 same species. Hence it occurred to Linnaeus that 

 the impregnation of the female flowers of the former 

 was still practicable, even by means of the pollen that 

 might be procured and carried from the male flowers 

 of the latter. Accordingly a flowering branch of the 

 male plant was dispatched by post from Leipsic to 

 Berlin, a distance of twenty German miles, and 

 shook or suspended over the flowers of the female 

 plant. The consequence was that the fruit was 

 ripened and the embryo perfected, and young plants 

 raised from the seed. 



Exper. 6. If the male plant is again removed The male 

 from the vicinity of the female plant to which it jJ^J. 

 had given fecundity, the fruit of the female plant is drawn * 



