358 IMPREGNATION OF THE SEED. CHAP. VII. 



the pollen was applied but to one of them ; which 

 shows that there is a communication between all 

 the styles, and consequently between all the 

 germens. 



SECTION II. 

 Agency of the Pollen. 



ADMITTING that the pollen is conducted to the 

 ovary through the channel of the tubes of the style, 

 how after all is the ovary fecundated ; or the seed 

 rendered fertile ? On this subject naturalists have 

 been much divided ; and according to their several 

 opinions have been classed under the respective ap- 

 pellations of ovaristfc, animalculists, and epigene- 

 sists. 



SUBSECTION I. 



Theory of the Ovarist. According to the opi- 

 nion of the first class, the embryo pre-exists in the 

 ovary, and is fecundated by the agency of the 

 pollen as transmitted to it through the style. This 

 As main- seems to have been the opinion of Grew, who says 

 Grew, y expressly in his Anatomy of Plants, that when the 

 summits of the stamens open, and the pollen is 

 discharged upon the pistil, some subtile and vivifying 

 effluvium escapes ; which, descending through the 

 medium of the style, impregnates the embryo. 

 Bonnet and Haller seem to have been of the' same 



