134 GENERATION. 



tained by some of the first botanists concerning its true 

 nature, and the very opposite views taken by them of 

 certain of its phenomena, seemingly substantiated by 

 existing facts ; and the student must be warned that de- 

 cisive conclusions upon many points connected with it, 

 are just now totally out of the question. What follows 

 we shall class under separate divisions, so that the no- 

 tions generally held upon the subject, and which are of 

 older occupancy, shall not be confounded with those of 

 less general acceptation and of younger birth ; but all 

 of which are equally necessary to be regarded even in a 

 work essentially elementary. 



First Division. 



220. During a certain period of the life of the plant, 

 we find within that part of the pistil called the ovarium, 

 the body termed the ovule, and that at an after period 

 this ovule has become transformed into a seed, and is 

 contained within the altered ovarium or pericarp. 



221. If the ovule had been removed and placed under 

 the conditions of germination, we should have found that 

 it would have remained an inert mass as far as regard the 

 results which should follow these conditions ; but when 

 in its altered state as seed, it is subjected to the like 

 circumstances, the evolution of another being like that 

 in which it had its origin is seen to take place. 



222. Now we say this transformation of the ovule 

 into the seed is the result of impregnation, fertilization, 

 or fecundation, and that without this having taken place, 

 the ovule never could have been changed into a seed, 

 nor have produced another being, and that the process 

 essentially consists in the pollen, which is contained 

 within the anther coming somehow or other into con- 

 tact with the stigma, or absorbing surfaces of the pistil, 

 and then transmitting some vivifying influence into the 

 ovule, by which it is impregnated, or the perfection of it 

 into seed takes place : that the vivifying influence and 



