Chap, i.] Sexuality in Cryptogams. 4.37 



The great majority of botanists in the second half of the 

 1 8th century had no longer any doubt that the stamens were 

 organs of reproduction, and they were anxious to prove the 

 existence of similar organs in the Cryptogams ; they rested in 

 this matter on external resemblances and analogies, which they 

 interpreted in a more or less arbitrary manner. The obvious 

 external resemblance between the antheridia and archegonia in 

 Mosses and the sexual organs in the Phanerogams led Schmidel 

 and Hedwig to consider them to be stamens and ovaries, and 

 the conjecture was correct, though the true nature of the moss- 

 fruit had to be learnt in another way. Micheli, Linnaeus 

 and Dillen, trusting still more to external appearance and with 

 slight knowledge of these plants, had before this taken the 

 fruit for a male flower, and in the case of the rest of the 

 Cryptogams the best botanists were only feeling their way in 

 the dark with no certain experience to guide them. It is not 

 necessary to give a particular account of the views which 

 originated in this way ; one or two may be mentioned by way 

 of example. Koelreuter regarded the volva of Mushrooms, 

 Gleditsch and Hedwig certain tube-like cells in their lamellae, 

 as the male organs of fertilisation. Gleichen took the stomata, 

 Koelreuter the indusium, Hedwig even the glandular hairs of 

 Ferns for anthers. It was not yet suspected that the course of 

 development and the whole morphology of the Cryptogams 

 could not be so compared with that of the Phanerogams ; 

 correct and incorrect assumptions with regard to the sexual 

 organs of the Cryptogams were alike devoid of scientific value, 

 being mere guesses and vague conjectures. Nor was the state 

 of things much better even in the first years of the 

 century ; and if by that time a number of occasional obser- 

 vations had been made which could afterwards be turned to 

 scientific account, these were as yet only isolated facts without 

 scientific connection, and every one was at liberty to concede 

 or to refuse sexual organs to the Cryptogams generally at bis 

 own discretion. Meanwhile observations gradually accumu- 



