406 PROPAGATION OF THE SPECIES. CHAP. IX. 



although the fruits now adduced as examples are 

 not such as could vegetate on the coast on which 

 they were thrown, owing to soil or climate ; yet it is 

 to be believed that fruits may have been often thus 

 transported to climates or countries favourable to 

 their vegetation. 



SECTION III. 

 Gents. 



Gems dis- THOUGH plants are for the most part propagated 

 frornseeds. by means of seeds, yet many of them are propa- 

 gated also by means of gems ; which have been 

 already defined, in as far as their definition could be 

 given without a direct reference to the mode of 

 their generation, as being distinct from that of the 

 seed, but which, till after the discussion of the sub- 

 ject of vegetable sexuality, it was pehaps premature 

 to introduce. What then are the essential marks 

 by which gems are to be distinguished from seeds ? 

 The following are the discriminations of Gaertner :* 

 First The first and most essential marks by which the 



A/T L- 



gem .is to be distinguished from the seed is that of 

 its being formed without the intervention of a sexual 

 apparatus ; and merely by the agency of the vital 

 and organizing principle of the plant. Gsertner 

 describes it as originating in what he calls the flesh 

 of the plant, which he does not, however, accurately 

 * Ititrod. de Seminibus. 



