60 Remarks on Cytisus Adchm. 



bark of the Cytisus Adam/. To this we may reply, that the 

 seed which produced this tree had been fecundated by the pollen 

 of a cytisus or other tree not yet ascertained, and by the })ollen 

 of the Cytisus purpiireus ; this is supposing that the female in 

 plants can be fecundated by several males at the same time. If 

 this supposition is admitted in certain animals, there is no 

 example that it is admitted in vegetables ; for I consider all 

 that M. Gallesio has said on superfoetations as not proved. I 

 I knew M. Gallesio personally ; he was an amateur who had 

 no rational idea of vegetable physiology, and who gave as veri- 

 fied facts what was only the fruit of his imagination. 



Now that it is a received opinion that the embryo pre- 

 exists before fecundation (the embryo must be considered as the 

 developement, by fecundation, of a germ situated at the extremity 

 of one of the lateral fibres of the capillary leaf) in vegetables as in 

 animals, and that it is acknowledged that the sexes are determined 

 in the embryo before fecundation, it is difficult to admit that the 

 three species enclosed without mingling under the bark of the 

 Cj^tisus Adamz are produced by the simple fact of vegetation, 

 the action of which is admitted only to give life to the pre- 

 existing embryo. 



In ordinary hybrids, the influence of the male and female is 

 nearly equal on the embryo, and the plant produced partakes of 

 the character of two plants : but in the C}^tisus Adam/ there is 

 little or no mixture; each of the three species shows itself dis- 

 tinct, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, without its 

 being previously foreseen. 



If we could still say with BufFon, that the embryo is formed 

 in the act of fecundation, by the mixture of the seminal liquid of 

 the male and of the female, the explanation of the origin of 

 C. Adam/ would be easy ; but the preexistence of the embryo to 

 fecundation being admitted, the opinion of BufFon is no longer 

 valid. We must, therefore, say of the C. Adam/ what has been 

 said of the orange called Bizarrerie, namely, that in the act of 

 fecundation the fructifying substances have not mingled com- 

 pletely ; that some particles have remained untouched ; that they 

 have lived and vegetated of themselves in the embryo and in 

 the seed ; that they continue to vegetate in the body of the tree 

 always of themselves ; and that, when opportunity again presents 

 itself, they produce a bud, branch, leaf, and flower of their own 

 species. 



This, my dear Sir, is the Jie plus ultra of ihe hypothesis which 

 we have founded here on the Bizarrerie and on the Cytisus 

 Adam/. I hope you will do better than we have done. 



On the 20th of this month, M. Jaques again presented to the 

 Society of Horticulture a branch of Cytisus Adam/, which had 



