CB,YPTOGAMIC b^RUCTIFICATION. 



79 



room, if placed on the gxound, will be developed 

 there ; but it will not be, as in the embryo of a 

 pbarerogamous plant, parts already formed, only 

 reduced as it were to their rudimentary state, 

 that will successively acquire a greater develop- 

 ment ; but, on the contrary, parts entirely new 

 will be produced. It is not a growth of organs 

 already existing; but the tissue of the sporule 

 or reproductive corpuscle, becomes elongated, on 

 the one hand to sink into the ground and form 

 a root, when the vegetable is to have one, and on 

 the other hand to stretch up in the opposite di- 

 rection and form a stem. In whatever position a 

 sporule may be placed, the part in contact with 

 the earth always elongates to form the root, and 

 the opposite part becomes the stem. These two 

 organs, therefore, do not exist previous to this 

 development, but are produced by the influence 

 of certain circumstances, which appear as if for- 

 tuitous and foreign to the very nature of the 

 body which produces them. 



If we now examine the parts which have been 

 looked upon as the flowers by various authors, 

 we shall find that their opinions respecting them 

 are very discordant; some considering as male 

 flowers what others describe as female flowers. 

 Thus, in the mosses, Linnaeus considers the tlieca 

 as a male flower, Hedwig as a female flower, 

 and Palisot de Beauvois as a hermaphi-odite 

 flower. 



Whenever these plants, as, for example, the 

 mosses, present two very distinct kinds of par- 

 ticular organs, which have been considered as 

 those of fnictification, authors could only have 

 been embarrassed in selecting this or that for 

 the function which they had to attribute to it. 

 But, in the Jungermannise, where there are 

 sometimes three or four kinds of fructifications 

 differing from each other in their external fonn, 

 as there are only two kinds of sexual organs, 

 the male and the female, it would be necessary 

 here to admit four. For, if the name of sexual 

 organs has been given to two of these parts, why 

 should it be denied to the other two, whose in- 

 ternal structure is the same, but which differ 

 only in their external forms, or in their disposition 1 

 In the ferns, on the contrary, in which there 

 is evidently but a single species of fructification 

 entirely formed of small grains, commonly en- 

 closed in little membranous bags, and which have 

 been considered as seminules or seedlets, where 

 are the stamina? Where the stigma which has 

 received the influence of the pollen? Where 

 the pistil which has transmitted it to the ovules? 

 Does it afford a satisfactory answer to these 

 questions to say, as Micheli and Hedwig have 

 done, that the hairs which are observed on the 

 young leaves are the stamina; or, as HiU and 

 Schmidel have . asserted, that the male flowers 

 are the rings which surround the receptacles in 

 which the seminules are contained? 



It must be admitted that opinions so discor- 

 dant, and even contradictory, lead us to an in- 

 ference which appears to be inevitable, and which 

 is, that the alleged flowers of agamous plants, 

 sometimes considered as containing stamina, and 

 sometimes as containing pistils, are not in reality 

 flowers, but peculiar organs, constituting a kind 

 of buds, to which nature has intrusted the re- 

 production of these singular plants. Why, in 

 fact, should we wish to confine the power of 

 nature within the narrow limits of our concep- 

 tions? Her means are as varied as her power is 

 gi'eat ; and if she has bestowed upon the agamous 

 plants an aspect so different from that of the 

 phanerogamous, and given them external organs 

 which often bear no resemblance to those of the 

 latter, why might she not also have accorded them 

 a peculiar mode of reproduction, having nothing 

 similar to that of phanerogamous plants but the 

 effects which it produces, in other words, the 

 formation of the organs by which the species is 

 to be perpetuated? 



Mepaticw, The reproductive organs of this 

 class of simple vegetable productions, in as far 

 as they are yet known, are pretty much analo- 

 gous to those of the mosses ; but the parts cor- 

 responding to the stamens and pistils of perfect 

 plants, do not appear to have been hitherto as- 

 certained so satisfactorOy as to leave no ground 

 of doubt. In their flowering, however, they ap- 

 pear also, like the mosses, to be either monoecious 

 or dioecious, and, perhaps, even without excep- 

 tion so, the example of an hermaphrodite 

 flower being almost unknown. According to 

 Hedwig, the barren flower of the hepatica which 

 can scarcely be said to have any perceptible 

 calyx, or corolla, consists either of small and 

 globular protuberances, issuing from the summit 

 of the plant, or from among the leaflets, or from 

 the surface of the frond, constituting a viscus 

 that contains a powdery substance, which is the 

 pollen, as in Jungermania ; or of small andminute 

 granules, surrounded with substances resembling 

 the succulent threads of the mosses and imbedded 

 in the body of the frond, or in target-shaped 

 substances issuing from the surface of the frond, 

 and elevated in conspicuous pedicles. The fertile 

 flowers consist for the most part of a double en- 

 velope, an outer and an inner, the former corres- 

 ponding in some degree to the calyx, and the 

 other, which immediately invests the ovary, and 

 is surmounted with the style, to the corolla of 

 perfect plants. The ovary, which in some spe- 

 cies remains sessile, and in others is elevated as 

 a pedicle, opens, when ripe, into several longi- 

 tudinal valves, and discharges the seed. It a 

 plant of jungermania is examined, even by the 

 naked eye, in an early stage of its growth, there 

 will be seen, besides the general herbage, a 

 number of small oblong and sack-like substances, 

 issuing from among the leaflets, and assuming 



