THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 463 



In a charming production entitled, the " Marriage of 

 Plants " (Sponsalia Plantarurn), the great botanist initiates 

 us into many marvels. In it he relates that having taken 

 two specimens of the annual mercury (Mercurialis annua, 

 Linn.), the one male and the other female, growing in sep- 

 arate pots, the fecundity of the latter was more marked in 

 proportion as her spouse was nearer. Even at a consider- 

 able distance impregnation still took place ; the air becom- 

 ing the mysterious medium of communication between the 

 plants. But when the stalk charged with stamens, with 

 which the experiment was made, was removed from the 

 greenhouse the abandoned wife remained quite sterile. 



A few years subsequently to the time of this learned 

 botanist, Gleditsch likewise proved the fecundation of plants 

 by a transcendent demonstration. He had in his garden at 

 Berlin a female palm-tree, the verdant crown of which 

 yearly overshadowed numerous flowers, and each year these 

 were infallibly stricken with sterility. But having learned 

 that there was a male plant of the same species flourishing 

 at Dresden, he conceived the idea of sending for some of 

 the pollen in order to artificially impregnate the one in his 

 possession. The pollen dust was immediately sent to him 

 by the post, and a short time after he had sprinkled it upon 

 the stigmas of his palm-tree he beheld all the flowers fe- 

 cundated by the contact produce a corresponding number 

 of fruits. 1 



1 On one of my visits to Strasburg, Professor Fde showed me a female palm- 

 tree on which he had repeated Gleditsch' s experiment with equal success. It was 

 a dwarf palm-tree, Chamcerops kumilis, the flowers of which were fecundated with 

 pollen sent from a distance. He simply sprinkled it upon them. All the fruit 

 was developing perfectly upon this palm-tree when I saw it in the month of Au- 

 gust, 1855. 



