SECT. IV. OBJECTIONS. 



if the mucous substance is that by which impreg- 

 nation is effected, it is to all intents and purposes 

 a pollen, which in the case of the Fuel is neces- 

 sarily mucous as being suited to the nature of the 

 element in which the plant vegetates.* In the 

 latter class he ranks the Fungi, Confervce, and 

 Ulvce, contending that they are wholly without 

 seed as without sex, and propagated merely by 

 gems. But on the contrary, M. Correa De Serra 

 contends that they are in all respects similar to the 

 grains of the Fuci, and equally entitled to the ap- 

 pellation of seeds. So that if Gaertner has erred 

 on the one hand in denying the universality of the 

 sexes, and degrading the grains in question from 

 the rank of seeds, Hedwig has erred on the 

 other, in elevating a variety of substances, rather 

 too hastily, to the rank of stamens and pistils. 



But if Gaertner's theory should even be un-AndGsert- 

 founded, it exhibits at least a' view of the compa- n< 

 rative perfection of plants as connected with the 

 perfection of their sexual apparatus, which should 

 not be omitted. When the species is propagated 

 by gems only, without seed, as in the lowest orders 

 of vegetable beings, no sexual organs are percepti- 

 ble. When the seed is inconspicuous and seemingly 

 nothing but an embryo, then the female organs 

 are perceptible but not the male organs, and the 

 plants are called Aphrodites. When the radicle 



* M. Correa De Serra Fruct. of Submersed Algae, 



