Chap, i.] Karl Friedrich Gartner. 427 



theory. The only reply to this offer, an essay by Wiegmann 



which was not sent in till 1828, did not come up to the re- 

 quirements of the Academy, and was rewarded with only halt" 

 the prize. The Dutch Academy at Haarlem was more suc- 

 cessful when induced by Reinwardt in 1830 to propose the 

 question in a somewhat altered form and in connection with 

 practical horticulture. This prize was contended tor by Karl 

 Friedrich Gartner \ whose essay delayed by circumstances till 

 1837 received the prize of honour and an extraordinary reward. 

 But the whole body of his results, derived from the experi- 

 mental researches of five-and-twenty years, were not published 

 till 1849 an d then in a large volume, ' Versuche und Beobach- 

 tungen iiber die Bastardzeugung,' Stuttgart, 1849, having been 

 preceded by an introductory work of equal extent, ' Versuche 

 und Beobachtungen iiber die Befruchtungsorgane der voll- 

 kommeneren Gewachse und iiber die natiirliche und kiinstliche 

 Befruchtung durch den eigenen Pollen.' The two works 

 together are the most thorough and complete account of ex- 

 perimental investigation into sexual relations in plants which 

 had yet been written. They are a brilliant termination of 

 the period of doubt with respect to sexuality in plants which 

 succeeded to the age of Koelreuter — a termination which 

 coincides in time with the lively discussion which was being 

 maintained on the strength of microscopical investigations by 



1 Karl Friedrich Gartner, son of Joseph Gartner, was born at Calw in 

 1772, and died there in 1S50. He attended lectures on natural science at 

 the Carlsacademie at Stuttgart, and then went first to Jena for medical 

 instruction, and in 1795 to Gottingen, where he was a pupil of Lichteiiberg. 

 He took a degree in 1796 and settled as a physician in his native town. 

 Here he occupied himself at first with questions of human physiology, and 

 afterwards worked at the supplement to his father's ' CarpologU.' He- 

 collected notices and extracts for a complete work on vegetable physiolog] . 

 This design was never fulfilled, but it led to his taking up the question ol 

 sexuality in plants, to which he devoted twenty-five years ('Jahrtsheft 

 des Vereins fiir vaterl. Naturkuude in Wurtemberg, < 1852, wl. vi.i, 

 p. 16). 



