410 MORPHOLOGY. 



styled theory, and, moreover, gives an extensive new terminology. 

 Hartig certainly speaks of many new discoveries, but if one looks into the 

 matter, not one single fact is found which was not better understood before. 

 The complete uselessness of this book to the advancement of our science 

 follows from two circumstances : in the first place, the author's total 

 ignorance of the literature of the subject, of what has been established 

 by those who have worked in the science before him ; in the second 

 place, Hartig evidently has not the necessary skill in manipulation, nor 

 a correct method. Therefore his whole work in fact only says, " I have 

 not succeeded in tracing the pollen-tubes in the generality of plants;" 

 on which it is to be remarked, that he sought partly in the wrong places, 

 and partly (as in the Dichogamous flowers) at the wrong time ; hereupon 

 lie at once assumed a new mode of fecundation, where he saw the pollen- 

 granules lie and dry up, or emit imperfect tubes. Hartig has himself 

 such clear and correct reasoning in his Introduction, that he may be 

 readily confuted by it. He states the question thus : Can the rudiment 

 of the embryo lie sometimes in the pollen-tube, and in others in the 

 gerrnen, in the seed-bud? and with perfect right answers in the negative; 

 since there exist no grounds for assuming such a planless uncertainty in 

 nature. Then Hartig proceeds : If now an undoubted case exists, in 

 which the embryo cannot originate from the pollen-tube, its origin from 

 that is consequently to be universally denied. This is quite right too, 

 only, from the greater value and easier proof of positive assertions, it 

 would be better to state the matter the reverse way. If, namely, the 

 origin of the embryo from the pollen-tube has been observed undoubtedly 

 in but one case, the matter is decided, and all apparently opposing facts 

 fall into the class of imperfect observations. Such cases actually do 

 exist, even if I disregard my own observations, quite clear and admitting 

 of no other signification ; Wydler has furnished in Scrophularia, and 

 Meyen in Fritillaria imperialis, the most complete testimony, and 

 Meyen's observation is especially the more decisive, that he, starting 

 from a pre-conceived notion, neither expected such a result from the 

 investigation, nor could admit it, and therefore took every pains to 

 explain away those facts which he was much too candid to suppress. 

 Thus is the question decided on the ground which Hartig himself has 

 given. He thinks, however, he can give the decision quite the other 

 way, in ignorance of those facts and referring to his observations of 

 Campanula, as he himself owns, the sole sure prop of his different 

 theory. This pillar, however, is very weak ; the peculiar behaviour of 

 the collecting hairs, observed long before his researches, has nothing at 

 nil to do with fecundation, or, at most, only so far that in the retraction 

 of the hairs the greater part of the pollen becomes stripped off them, and 

 thus exposed loose to the wind and insect?, which transport it to the 

 stigma.* The fecundation of the Campanulaccce takes place in quite a 

 different way. By industrious and patient search I have always found 

 the pollen-tubes on the stigma and at the micropyle in the Campanulacece ; 

 in C. Medium and rapimculoides I have traced them the whole way ; in 

 the former it is not even difficult to demonstrate the whole tube in 

 unbroken continuity. I doubt not too, that Hartig, who is earnest and 

 zealous in science, will before long become convinced of the untenable 

 nature of his imaginary theory. I consider it quite superfluous to enter 

 further into Hartig's views, since the whole relates merely to imperfect 



* Wilson (Mohl untl Schlechtenckbl's Bot Zeitg. vol. i. pp. 382. and 870.) lias also 

 shipwrecked his skill in observation on the collecting hairs of the Catnpannlacccc. 



