PHANEROGAMIA: FLOWERS. 359 



when they are present, are best defined as first, second, and third layers. 

 That the external pollen membrane never consists of cells, will be self- 

 evident after the manner of its origin is known ; but Meyen had already 

 corrected this error, which arises from the very deceptive appearances. 



The doctrine of vegetable spermatozoa is now, I hope, gradually dying 

 away. A man must be blinded indeed by old prejudices if he will con- 

 tinue, after the very complete investigations of Mohl, to hold the remote 

 analogies between the antheridia and the anther. I have already shown 

 that in Phanerogamia the representatives of these are to be sought in a 

 very different place. The granules (generally starch) taken for sper- 

 matozoa have, indeed, lost their life in Fritsche's tincture of iodine, since 

 their evidently purely physical molecular movement remained unde- 

 stroyed. 



It appears to me altogether superfluous to enter further upon this 

 point; Meyen * gives the whole literature, which has now merely a his- 

 torical value. Fritsche f has completely settled the matter, and every 

 unprejudiced observer may convince himself with ease of the completely 

 untenable nature of the wonders formerly spun out, especially by Meyen. 

 The confirmatory observations of Nageli on this point are also of great 

 value. | 



At a determined time the thecae of all anthers open in one fashion 

 or other, in order to permit the dispersion of the pollen, just like 

 the sporocarps of Cryptogamia. The manner in which this takes 

 place varies very much. The thecae of the anthers of the Cycadacece, 

 which are small in size, two or four in number, and united into a 

 little oval, capsular form, are rent open by a longitudinal slit ; the 

 thecae of Juniperus, Taxus, and their allies, open exactly like the 

 sporocarps of Equisetum. I am unacquainted with the manner in 

 which the anthers of most of the exotic Coniferce burst. In our 

 native Abies (Pinus and Larix ?), and in all the Asclepiadacece, only 

 one loculus is formed at each side of the connective, both open, 

 whilst the wall is torn away in the middle line from the connective, 

 therefore with two longitudinal slits, one for each loculus. The 

 outer wall of the loculus, which thus becomes disengaged, and 

 which is dry and elastic, is termed the valve (valvulct) ; and because 

 only two valvular are to be distinguished, only one long cleft is 

 spoken of, anthera rima loncfitudinali unica dehiscens. 



In many Caladiece, in Ceratopkyllum, and other plants, at the time 

 of the ripening of the pollen, a canal is formed (by destruction of 

 the cellular tissue ?) to the summit of the anther, through which 



* Physiologic, vol. iii. pp. 178 196. 



f Loc. cit. supra. 



| Gottsche (on Haplomitrium Hookeri, Act. A. L. C. N. C. xx. i. p. 804.) has 

 a strange polemic against me, referring what I say regarding the contents of the pollen 

 of Phanerogamia to the contents of the antheridia of the Cryptoyamia, because he cannot 

 overcome the prejudice that the anthers of the Phanerofjamia and the antheridia of the 

 Cryptogamia are the same organs. He is guided here solely hy the word anther ; and 

 this very mistaken argument may show to him, as an example, how wrong he is in 

 saying, at p. 297., that by the term antheridium he knows neither more nor less than 

 by the term anther. Of course, one understands more by it : the different word tells 

 us that we have to do with a different thing, and must not mingle matters which are 

 not the same. The whole argument is the more strange, since I myself had published, 

 at least long before Gottsche, some contributions to the knowledge pf the spiral fila- 

 ments in the antheridia of the Mosses and Liverworts, and their motion. 



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