374 MORPHOLOGY. 



investigations through all parts of the flower, many at present doubt- 

 ful * alliances of the families of plants will take a very diiferent order ; 

 many certain ones be more accurately established and expressed. 



The second point which it is here essential to make good, and the in- 

 fluence of which in the theory of reproduction is of the most decided im- 

 portance, relates to the connection of the cavity of the germen with the 

 external air through the canal of the style. That any one has opinions 

 on reproduction, deserving even the slightest attention, nay, that any one 

 can institute researches into reproduction with a hope of any useful result, 

 who has not previously become quite clear in this point, is to me as 

 plain, as in Zoology, the necessity of the previous inquiry whether a 

 free passage exists between ovary and uterus, and between these and 

 the external sexual parts. That " laisser-faire" folks, who on this point 

 have not even once attempted to establish their opinions through original 

 investigation, should undertake to discuss the theory of reproduction, and 

 even to set up new theories, persons who are at the same time skilful 

 observers, such as Hartig*, proves how sad the condition of science 

 actually is, how little the generality of men have yet comprehended the 

 true character of a scientific examination of organic bodies. That this 

 reproach applies to botanists generally, and not to individuals, is evident 

 from the acceptance which such essays meet with. If a zoologist were 

 to set up a new theory of reproduction, and in it to assert that the 

 uterus is a sac closed in on all sides, all zoologists would laugh and cast 

 the treatise aside without further notice. Botanists in general have not 

 even advanced so far as to see how indispensible the settlement of such 

 a question is, and thus such treatises circulate, are copied, half-compre- 

 hended, used as materials from whence to spin out new fantasies, and 

 the science remains ever at the same low point, around which it revolves 

 in an eternal circle. Men like Robert Brown, Mirbel, Brongniart and 

 Meyen, write altogether for oblivion, because they find no public which 

 is capable of estimating their labours ; since a man may talk well about 

 many things, but has a scientific judgment only on such objects as he 

 is acquainted with through his own researches ; and how many among the 

 hundreds of German botanists may there be, who have even once at- 

 tempted to form an independent opinion of the nature of the organs of 

 propagation of plants by the investigation of their development on only 

 one single plant ? Would it, in these days, be forgiven a zoologist not 

 to have himself once made the complete course of development of a 

 chicken, or some other animal, an object of his investigation? a subject 

 which is so difficult, that the history of development of a germen appears 

 as mere child's play beside it. 



When the formation of any germen whatsoever is traced, it is seen in 

 every case, from whatever fundamental organs it may have originated, 

 that the cavity of the germen is always open to the external air, either 

 immediately, if only a stigma (stigma sessile) exist, or through the canal 

 of the style, which is indeed merely a prolongation of the cavity of the 

 germen ; since the parts from which the pistil is produced are always 

 formed as flat structures. In monomerous pistils, the margins become 

 applied together and blended, from below upward, so as to form a con- 

 tinuous tube, open above ; in pistils composed of a number of parts, these 



* Ho\v little is as yet certain in this respect is shown by every new systematic work 

 that appears : every one throws the families together in a different way, into a self-styled 

 thoroughly Natural system. 



j- New Theory of Impregnation, &c. Brunswick, 1842, p. 7. 



