EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 341 



important results ; botanists went on surmising and ex- 

 plaining, relying a good deal on the sagacious conjecture 

 of Grew, but thinking, and probably knowing, little 

 of what Camerarius had proved/ The few who could 

 judge his work saw that his experiments were decisive 

 as to the fact of fertilisation by means of the pollen of 

 the anthers. Kolreuter, the most competent among 

 these few, strongly asserted that it was Camerarius who 

 had founded the doctrine of the sexuality of plants by 

 his observations and experiments.^ 



Samuel Morland^ started a theory of the process of 

 fertilisation in flowering plants which, though largely 

 unfounded, influenced later contributors to the dis- 

 cussion. He supposed that the pollen is "a congeries 

 of seminal particles, one of which must be conveyed 

 into every ovum before it can become prolific." The 

 style is a tube (this is taken from Tournefort) designed 

 to convey these "seminal plants" into their nest in 

 the ova.* In the Crown Imperial the anthers are "so 



^In this very year 1694, Tournefort was teaching {EUmens de Boianxqut, 

 p. 47), that "on peut regarder ces etamines comme les vaisseaux excn^toires, 

 qui se dechargent dans les sommets (anthers), o'est-i-dire, dans les bourset 

 particulieres ; ou il se dess^che, et se reduit ordinairement en poussi^re trAs- 

 menue" ; and (p. 55) that "le pistille du Coquelicot est oni«i dans le haut de 

 quelques bandes veloutees. Ceux de la Populago, de la Gentiane, de la 

 Campanule, et presque tous les pistilles des fleurs sont velout^s dans leur 

 extr^mit^ ; c'est-i-dire converts de poils fistuleux, ou parsem^s de petites 

 vessies, qui servent apparerament k verser ce quo lo sue nourrioier contient 

 de moins propre pour la nourriture des jeunes fruits. Les fentos qui sent k 

 leurs extr^mit^s servent peut-fitre k donner entree k Tair, qui s'insinuant 

 dans chaque loge, contribue k I'accroissement des graines, et oo suo glaant 

 en defend I'entr^e aux insectes qui pourraient lea ronger, comme le remarque 

 Mr. Malpighi." 



3**Prseprimis, quia inde patebit, Kcelreuterum foiiae, qui demoDttravit, 

 quod R. J. Camerarius fuerit, qui primus sponsalia planUrum per obwrva- 

 tiones et exi)erimenta cognovisset " (Mikan's preface). 



^Phil. Trans., No. 287 (1703). 



*The "seminal particles" of the preceding •entenoe have booomo ^^aeminai 

 plants." We remark that Morland writea under the influenoe of Utawwhotk. 



