252 Address of the President of the British Association. 



mal productions of New Holland, so wonderful in their forms and 

 structures, have long formed the most remarkable characteristic of its 

 vast region; nor is its botany without distinctions of much interest, 

 though as yet but very imperfectly explored. It may be said, however, 

 in reference to the results of these later expeditions, which have pen- 

 etrated further inland, that they have not brought to our knowledge 

 any peculiarities in the vegetable kingdom so various and so striking 

 as those which exist near the coasts, and which are sufficient to dis- 

 tinguish New Holland and the Australian colonies from the other re- 

 gions of the world. 



u In the diffusion of the riches of the vegetable world, steam navi- 

 gation has obviously been a most favorable auxiliary; so that 'even 

 cuttings of plants' are now 'actually sent successfully to Calcutta, 

 Ceylon, &C 1 In speaking of the exports from Kew, it is not unfitting 

 to add, that c between four and five thousand plants of the famous 

 Tussae grass have been dispersed from the Royal Gardens at Kew du- 

 ring the past year.' 



"The increase in the number of visitors to that most flourishing 

 establishment is some evidence at least of an increase of a taste for the 

 development of science, and probably of that increase of the love ot 

 science which it is one of the objects of the British Association to en- 

 courage in all classes. 



"In 1841, the number of visitors was 9,174; but they are nearly 

 doubling every year. In 1844, they were 15,114; in 1845, 28,139; 

 in 1846, 46,573. 



In vegetable physiology, microscopic observers have of late been 



It 



much occupied in investigating the phenomena of fecundation, and 

 especially as to the mode of action of the pollen. . , 



* On this subject botanists are still divided. Several experienced 

 observers adopt the theory lately advanced and ingeniously supported 

 by Prof. Schleiden, of Berlin; while others of great eminence deny 

 the correctness on which this theory is founded. Among these, the 

 celebrated microscopic observer, Prof. Amici, of Florence, very re- 

 cently in an essay — communicated to the scientific meeting held m 

 1846 at Genoa — has endeavored by a minute examination of sever* 

 species of Orchis, to prove the existence of the essential part of the 

 embryo anterior to the application of the pollen, which, according to 

 him, acts as the specific stimulus to its development. 



" This view receives great support from some singular exceptions 



to 



the general law of fecundation. . , 



44 Of these, the most striking occurs in a New Holland shrub, whicfl 

 has been cultivated several years in the Botanic Garden at Kew ; a 

 which, though producing female flowers only, has constantly f l P er \ 

 seeds from which plants have been raised perfectly resembling 

 parent -.—while yet there is no suspicion either of the P resen , ce ale 

 male flowers in the same plant, or of minute stamina in the ^ 

 flower itself, nor of fecundation by any related plant cultivated ao g 

 with it. f 



"This plant has been figured and described in a recent volume _ 

 the Linnean Society's ' Transactions,' under the name of C&wog9 

 ilicifoiiu, by Mr. J. Smith, the intelligent curator of the Kew Orara t 



