70 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [ANNO 17Q6. 



paratus foemineus, et intimam utriusque sexus sub specie singuli copulam. Both he 

 and Gmelin, forced by phenomena which they could not help observing, have 

 been in some moments very near to what I conceive to be the truth, but have sacri- 

 ficed it to preconceived opinions. 



In the last year two English botanists, to whom science stands indebted for 

 many excellent descriptions and figures of fuci, Major Velley, and Mr. Stackhouse, 

 treated this same matter, the first at large, the second occasionally. Both have 

 stated, with great ingenuity and candour, the many objections which attend the 

 existing systems, and both declared themselves not fully satisfied with the present 

 state of our knowledge on this subject. Mr. Stackhouse indeed seems to cherish 

 hopes of future discoveries of the male organs, in what he calls the concealed fi- 

 brous fructification, the antherae not seeming necessary to him, nor the farinaceous 

 pollen *. Perfectly agreeing with him, in what respects the needlessness of a fari- 

 naceous pollen, I cannot accede to the other parts of his opinion. A membrana- 

 ceous loculament, containing the pollen, is the only necessary part of the male 

 apparatus in plants ; the filaments and the fibrous texture are only the pedicles of 

 it, and very far from being necessary, as the sessile antherae of numberless fructi- 

 fications clearly prove. If a fibrous concealed structure could be esteemed of any 

 use, it was already found by Gmelin, in the seed-vessels of the true fuci, and ele- 

 gantly described by Major Velley, in the Fucus Vesiculosus, and by Mr. Stackhouse 

 himself, in the Fucus Siliquosus ; but, even when magnified, it offers nothing 

 more than simple tubular vessels, with frequent anastomoses, very remote indeed 

 from the nature of a male apparatus. 



Having stated the leading systems on the fructification of submersed algae, Twill 

 next submit to this Society such opinions as the phenomena I have observed induce 

 me to have about it. All these plants are furnished with grains, which are a tem- 

 porary production, and by their falling give rise to new individuals of the same 

 species. In the true fuci they are contained in a uterus, which has a temporary 

 existence, and for their sake only, where they have a placentation, and are covered 

 by a testa, or coat of their own. Nobody doubts that they are true seeds. The 

 ceramiums and ulvae have the same grains, as means of reproduction ; and the con- 

 fervae also have them, though of a different shape. What then can be the reasons 

 why these last are to be considered as gongyli and gemmae carpomorphae ? The only ' 

 argument adduced to deprive them of the nature of seeds are the 3 following. 1st. 

 The grains of the ulvae and ceramiums are solitary, not contained in a proper ute- 

 rus, consequently without a placentation. They are, says Gaertner, part of the 

 medulla of their mother, and their skin is part of the maternal one. 2d. They 

 do not, in germinating, leave any coat behind. 3d. In the confervae, whose grains 

 have some likeness to fresh internodia, 1 or more of them very often coalesce, but 

 give rise to only one individual. 



All these reasons require to be candidly discussed ; and I hope the result of the 

 * Nereis Britannica, in the preface, and page 30.-— Orig. 



