The Life and Writings of M. Desfontaines. "215 



place has been, agreeably to his wishes, bestowed upon a young bot- 

 anist of the highest hope (Adolphe Brongniart) who had been selec- 

 ted by him to perform his duties during his blindness. He left his 

 classical herbarium of Barbary to the Museum, and his general her- 

 barium has passed into the hands of a Botanist, (M. Webb) who will 

 doubtless turn it to a useful account. 



I am aware that in thus retracing the life and labors of my excel- 

 lent master, I have taught nothing to the botanists who have studied 

 them ; that I have added nothing to the eloquent \mtten accounts 

 by which Mirbel and De Jussieu have rendered homage to his char- 

 acter ; but, I have discharged a debt of my own heart, a duty of grat- 

 itude, a last tribute of friendship. 



Extract from a letter of M. Desfontaines, dated 11th of October, 1831. 



The following is the result of an experiment that I made this year 

 in my little garden, and which may be added to those of Linnaeus 

 and others on fecundation. 



I raised, in the course of June, a stalk of cuciirhita pepo, which 

 put out branches in difierent directions. All the male flowers were 

 successively and carefully removed before they were unfolded, about 

 forty female flowers opened with their stigmates and ovaries well 

 conformed. I procured two male flowers of cucurbita pepo from a 

 very distant plat of my garden, and shook the pollen of one of them 

 over the stigmates of one of the female flow^ers, and placed the bun- 

 dle of stamens of the other male flower, in a second female flower. 

 Both of these flowers produced firuit. That of the first is very large 

 and is now near its maturity ; that of the second, (in which the bun- 

 dle of stamens was placed) attained the size of a common melon and 

 then rotted ; but it was well formed. All the other female flowers 

 of my gourd entirely perished. I have several witnesses of these 

 facts and among others M. Mirbel. I am nevertheless far from be- 

 lieving that there are no plants which can produce seeds without the 

 concurrence of stamens. This may do for a blind man. Vale, et 

 iterum vale, amice. (Signed,) Desfontaines. 



