GENERATION. SECT. XXX IX. a. 



vegetable feeds. In the large flowers, as the tulip, 

 there is no fimilarity of apparatus between the an- 

 thers and the ftigma : the feed is produced accord- 

 ing to the obfervations of Spallanzani long before 

 the flowers open, and in confequence long before it 

 can be impregnated, like the egg in the pullet. And 

 after the prolific duft is {hed on the ftigma, the feed 

 becomes coagula'ed in one point firft, like the catri- 

 cula of the impregnated egg> See Botanic Garden, 

 Part I. additional note 38. Now in thefe fimple 

 produces of nature, if the female contributed to 

 produce the new embryon equally with the male, 

 there would probably have been fome vilible fimi- 

 larity of parts for this purpofe, befides thofe necef- 

 fary for the nidus and fuftenance of the new pro- 

 geny. Befides in many flowers the males are more 

 numerous than the females, or than the feparate ute- 

 rine cells in their germs, which would (hew, that 

 the office of the male was at lead as important as 

 that of the female ; whereas if the female, befides 

 producing the egg or feed, was to produce an equal 

 part of the embryon, the office of reproduction, 

 would be unequally divided between them. 



Add to this, that in the moft fimple kind of ve- 

 getable reproduction, I mean the buds of trees, 

 which are their viviparous offspring, the leaf is evi- 

 dently the parent of the bud, which rifes in its 

 bofom, according to the obfervation of Linnaeus. 

 This leaf confifts of abforbent veffels, and pulmo- 

 nary ones, to obtain its nutriment, and to impreg- 

 nate it with oxygene. This fimple piece of living 

 organization is allo furnifhed with a power of re- 

 production ; and as the new offspring is thus fup- 

 ported adhering to its father, it needs no mother 

 to fupply it with a nidus, and nutriment, and axy- 

 genation; and hence no female leaf has exiftence. 



I conceive that the veffels between the bud and 

 the leaf communicate or inofculate ; and that the 

 bud is thus ferved with vegetable blood, that is, 



with 



