STRUCTURE OF FLOWERS. 61 



orange, brick-coloured, violet, purple, or white; never 

 green or a true blue. But we must take care not to con- 

 found the colour of the anther with that of the pollen ; 

 and it must be remarked that the colour of the former 

 differs before, during, and after fecundation. 



The Pollen is a mass of granules contained in the 

 anther, and coming out of it at its dehiscence. According 

 to Guillemin, who has recently studied this important 

 organ with care, these grains, considered before their 

 exit, appear disposed in a regular series, following the 

 direction of the walls, and floating in a viscid fluid : at 

 whatever age they have been examined, they have 

 hitherto been found completely free ; and, if it be really 

 so, we may suppose that their nutrition takes place by 

 the simple absorption of the surrounding fluid by their 

 walls ; but it may be believed, with some likelihood, 

 that in their first stage they adhere to the walls of the 

 anther by a filament, which escapes our sight on account 

 of its fugacity or shortness, but which is sufficient to 

 keep them in continuity with the rest of the tissue ; 

 Turpin goes so far as to designate the part projecting- 

 into the interior of each cell as being that which bears 

 the pollen, and proposes to call it by the name of 

 Tropho-pollen. The adherence of the grains of pollen 

 with the anther, in their earliest state, seems to me 

 probable — 1st, on account of the general analogy of all 

 the organs of plants ; — 2dly, on account of the special 

 analogy of the grains of pollen with the ovules; an 

 analogy which is so great, that, as we shall afterwards 

 see, one half of the anther is sometimes found bearing 

 pollen, and the other half ovules. 



The grains of pollen at their maturity are sometimes 

 completely free, which is most frequently the case ; 

 sometimes kept in a kind of network formed of fine 

 filaments, as in the Onagrarise : and sometimes united 



