68 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1703. 



We have discovered that there are some animalcula which have no males 

 among them, and the same is observable among a few species of fishes also. 

 These animalcula and fishes may be compared to some seeds, which have no 

 other substance in them, besides the plant itself, and the membranes that in- 

 velope it; such are the seed of the beach tree, as also those of cresses. I have 

 also discovered the strings of the walnut and chesnut seeds, by which they 

 are nourished. 



Some new Observations upon the Parts and Use of the Flower in Plants. By 

 Mr. Sam. Morland. N° 287, p. 1474. 



It has been long since observed, that there is in every particular seed, a se- 

 minal plant, conveniently lodged between the two lobes, which constitute the 

 bulk of the seed, and are designed for the first nourishment of this tender 

 plant. But Dr. Grew is the only author who has observed that the farina, or 

 fine powder which is at its proper season shed out of those thecae or apices 

 seminiformes, which grow at the top of the stamina, does some way perform 

 the office of male sperm. But I think him wrong, in supposing them only to 

 drop upon the outside, or the uterus, or vasculum seminale, and to impreg- 

 nate the inclosed seed by some spirituous emanations, or energetical impress. 

 What is now proposed as the subject of inquiry, is, whether it be not more 

 proper to suppose, that the seeds which come up in their proper involucra, are 

 at first, like unimpregnated ova of animals ; that this farina is a congeries of 

 seminal plants, one of which must be conveyed into every ovum, before it can 

 become prolific ; that the stylus, in Mr. Ray's language, or the upper part of 

 the pistillum in Mr. Tournefort's is a tube designed to convey these seminal 

 plants into their nests in the ova; and that there is so vast a provision made, 

 because of the odds there are, whether one of so many shall ever find its way 

 into, and through so narrow a conveyance.* 



To make this supposition the more credible, I shall lay down the observations 

 I have made on the situation of these stamina, and the stylus in some few 

 species of plants. First, in the corona imperialis, where the uterus, or vascu- 

 lum seminale of the plant, stands on the centre of the flower, from the top of 

 which arises the stylus; the vasculum seminale and stylus together representing 

 a pistillum. Round this are planted six stamina; on the extremities of each of 

 these are apices, so artfully fixed that they turn every way with the least wind, 

 being in height almost exactly equal to the stylus, about which they play, 

 and which in this plant is manifestly open at the top, as it is hollow all the 

 way. To which we may add, that upon the top of the stylus, there is a sort 

 of tuft, consisting of pinguid villi, which I imagine to be placed there, to 



* On this distinction of the stamina and styles (pistilla) into male and female organs of generatioo* 

 ii founded the celebrated sexual system of Linnaeus. 



