222 Embryology. 



are discharged into the tube, and then, by some hidden and 

 mysterious agency, carried down the tube ; and that, fi na jj 

 they are thus conveyed into the ovule through the foramen, a J 

 form the speck. 



For all the evidence, and the many curious facts, connected 

 with this part of Botany, I must refer you to modern Introduc- 

 tions to this subject; in this place, you must be satisfied with 

 my assurance that this extraordinary statement is supported 

 not only by observations of my own, but by the concurrent 

 testimony of all the most cautious and skilful microscopical 

 observers who have engaged in the inquiry. 



What I have already stated to you is extraordinary enough, 

 and much cause as you have already found at every step to 

 admire the wonderful care and skill with which all the actions 

 of vegetable life are conducted, yet I think you must here find 

 a fresh and unexpected source of admiration. You see that in 

 the formation of the seed of even what we may deem the most 

 worthless weed, there is the same unerring Providence, as in 

 the preservation of the race of man. Only think for a moment, 

 upon the long journey that the little speck, the tiny rudiment 

 of a seed, has to take before it can arrive at the only place in 

 which it is possible that its destiny can be fulfilled, or that it 

 should be developed into a new being. Born in the pollen 

 grain, it is originally enclosed in a double-guarded prison: its 

 own little spherical vault, and the more extensive walls of the 

 anther. The anther must open before the pollen can escape; 

 and it must open too at a particular time, at the very moment 

 when the stigma has secreted a clammy dew which will hold 

 fast the pollen if it falls upon it. Then the pollen must fall on 

 the stigma; to fall elsewhere is useless. This accomplished, 

 the microscopic rudiment of the seed has to commence along 

 winding journey through all the intricacies of the style, and the 

 ovary, till its guardian tube conducts it to the ovule, and 

 deposits it in safety. And all this is so provided for that we 

 find every adjustment exactly that which is best suited to the 

 object in view ; invisible springs in the anther, acted upon by 

 the very same cause as that which renders the stigma clammy, 

 combine their million little forces to pull open the sides of that 

 case; to enable their forces to act with certainty, the sides of 



