390 THE UNIVERSE. 



pose that plants, like animals, present two sexes, but they 

 had only very confused ideas about them. 



It was only in the seventeenth century that Camerarius, 

 a physician of Tubingen, hit upon the real truth, which he 

 expounded in a letter that has become very celebrated. 



This writing lighted up the flames of discord in the 

 camp of the botanists; some warmly espoused the dis- 

 covery, others combated it to the very utmost. The dis- 

 pute became violent; the schools took part in it; men 

 quarrelled about it on every side; the pupils on their 

 benches and the professors in their chairs. In the Jardin 

 du Roi, Tournefort and Le Vaillant had a deadly dispute on 

 the subject. Pontedera, a cross-grained obstinate savant, 

 imagining that ascribing sexes to the flowers sullied their 

 virgin purity, treated all those botanists who accepted 

 the new heresy as devoid of decency. And yet there was 

 nothing in it that could alarm even the modesty of a rose. 



But notwithstanding the denials of Tournefort, and the 

 invectives of the old jirofessor of Padua, it became neces- 

 sary to admit the truth of the discovery, for experiment 

 proved every step in it. 



Every person has seen the delicate filaments which rise 

 up in the white flower of the lily. These are the repro- 

 ductive organs. Six of them, the beautiful yellow dust 

 of which stains the fingers of those who touch it, are the 

 stamens. This dust, Avhicli is usually elaborated in two 

 little sacks called anthers, is known as pollen ; the 

 German botanists give the anthers the more picturesque 

 name of pollen -ateliers. They are in fact marvellous 

 laboratories, in which the intangible agents of vegetable 

 life are imperceptibly distilled. If they are severed the 

 plant dies without posterity. 



Most usually anthers throw off their products by split- 



