386 A. Henjrey on the Higher Cryptogamous Plants. 
as representing the production of the phanerogamous embryo 
from the end of the pollen tube after it has penetrated into the 
embryo-sac. 
The promulgation of these statements naturally attracted great 
attention, aid since they appeared we have received several con- 
tributions to the history of these remarkable Structures, some 
confirmatory, to a certain degree, of Suminski’s views, others 
altogether opposed to them. 
In the early part of 1849, Dr. Wigand* published a series of 
researches on this subject, in which he subjected the assertions of 
Suminski to a strict practical criticism ; the conclusions he arriv 
at were altogether opposed to that author’s views respecting the 
supposed formation of the organs, and he never observed the en- 
trance of the spiral filaments into the cavity of the so-called 
ovule. 
About the same time M. Thuret} published an account of some 
observations on the antheridia of ferns. In these he merely con- 
firmed and corrected the statements of Nageli respecting the an- 
theridia, and did not notice the so-called ovules. 
Towards the close of the same year, Hofmeistert confirmed 
part of Suminski’s statements and opposed others. He stated 
that he had observed distinctly the production of the young plant 
(or rather the terminal bud for the new axis), in the interior of 
the so-called ‘ovule,’ but believed the supposed origin of it from 
the end of the spiral filament to be a delusion. He regards the 
globular cell at the base of the canal of the ‘ovule’ as itself the 
rudiment of the stem, or embryonal vesicle (the embryo origina- 
ting from a free cell produced in this), analogous to that produced 
in the pistillidia of the mosses. He also describes the develop- 
ment of the ovule differently, saying that the canal and orifice 
are opened only at a late period by the separation of the contigu- 
ous walls of the four rows of cells. Ae 2 
About the same time appeared an elaborate paper on the same 
subject by Dr. Hermann Schacht, whose results were almost 
identical. He found the young terminal bud to be developed in 
the cavity of one of the so-called ‘ovules,’ which were developed 
exactly in the same way as the pistillidia of the mosses. He 
stated also that the cavity of the ‘ovule’ is not open at first, and 
he declares against the probability of the entrance of a spiral fila- 
ment into it, never having observed this, much less a conversion 
of one into an embryo. 
In the essay of Dr. Mettenius already referred to,|| an account 
| oa 
of the development of the so-called ovules is given. His o 
* Botanische Zeitung, vol. vii, 1849. 
+ Ann. des Sci, Nat., Jan., 1849, ser. 3, vol. xi, Botanique. 
' Botanische Zeitung, 1849. § Linnea, vol. xxii, 1849. 
| Beitriige aur Botanik, 1. Heidelberg, 1850, Zur Fortptlanzung der Gefiiss- 
