EARLY STUDIES OF THE FLOWER 341 



important results ; botanists went on surmising and ex- 

 plaining, relying a good deal on the sagacious conjecture 

 of Grew, but thinking, and probably knowing, little 

 of what Camerarius had proved.^ The few who could 

 judge his work saw that his experiments were decisive 

 as to the fact of fertilisation by means of the pollen of 

 the anthers. Kolreuter, the most competent among 

 these few, strongly asserted that it was Camerarius who 

 had founded the doctrine of the sexuality of plants by 

 his observations and experiments.^ 



Samuel Morland^ started a theory of the process of 

 fertilisation in flowering plants which, though largely 

 unfounded, influenced later contributors to the dis- 

 cussion. He supposed that the pollen is "a congeries 

 of seminal particles, one of which must be conveyed 

 into every ovum before it can become prolific." The 

 style is a tube (this is taken from Tournefort) designed 

 to convey these "seminal plants" into their nest in 

 the ova.* In the Crown Imperial the anthers are "so 



» In this very year 1694, Tournefort was teaching {El4mens. de Botanique, 

 p. 47), that " on pent regarder ces etamines eomme lea vaisseaux exer^toires, 

 qui se dechargent dans les sommets (anthers), o'est-i-dire, dans les bourses 

 particulidres ; oi il se desstehe, et se r^duit ordinairement en poussi^re trfes- 

 menue" ; and (p. 55) that "le pistille du Coquelicot est orn^ dans le haut de 

 quelques bandes velout^es. Ceux de la Populago, de la Gentiane, de la 

 Campanule, et presque tous les pistilles des fleurs sont velout^s dans leur 

 extr^mit^ ; c'est-4-dire converts de poils fistuleux, ou parsem^s de petites 

 vessies, qui servent apparemment i verser ce que le sue nourrioier contient 

 de moins propre pour la nourriture des jeunes- fruits. Les fentes qui sont & 

 leura extr^mit^s servent peut-etre a donner entree k I'air, qui s'insinuant 

 dans chaque loge, contribue k. I'accroissement des graines, et ce sue gluant 

 en defend I'entrfe aux insectes qui pourraient les ronger, oomme le remarque 

 Mr. Malpighi." 



^ " Prseprimis, quia inde patebit, Kcelreuterum fuisse, qui demonstravit, 

 quod R. J. Camerarius fuerit, qui primus sponsalia plantarum per observa- 

 tiones et experimenta cognovisset " (Mikan's preface). 



^Phil. Trans., No. 287 (1703). 



*The "seminal particles" of the preceding sentence have become "seminal 

 plants." We remark that Morland writes under the influence of Leeuwenhoek. 



