MODE OF IMPREGNATION. 



9 



2. The Style, which is the part that serves to elevate the stig- 

 ma from the germen. 



3. The Stigma, which is the summit of the pistillum, and co- 

 vered with a moisture for the breaking of the pollen. 



It has been said in the last chapter, that the pollen was destined 

 for the impregnation of the germen : this is performed in the fol- 

 lowing manner. The anther ce, which at the first opening of the 

 flower are whole, burst open soon after, and discharge the pol- 

 len, which dispersing itself about the flower, part of it lodges 

 on the surface of the stigma, where it is detained by the moisture 

 with which that part is covered*; and each single grain or atom 

 of the pollen bursting and dissolving in this liquor, as it has been 

 observed to do by the microscope, is supposed to discharge some- 

 thing still more subtle, that impregnates the germen below. 

 What the substance is that is so discharged, and whether it actu- 

 ally passes through the style into the germen, seems yet undeter- 

 minedf, it being difficult to observe such minute parts : but 

 whatever be the operation by which Nature produces the effect 

 in question, the cause as far as it has been here explained, is 

 scarce disputable ; and accordingly we see, that after this impreg- 

 nation, when the parts of the flower that have done their office 

 are fallen away, the germen swells to a fruit big with seeds, by 

 which the species is propagated. The pistillum being, as I have 

 said, the female part of the flower, is of great consequence in 

 the Sexual System, as well as the male part, as will appear when 

 the System comes to be explained. 



* This is beautifully seen in the Amaryllis Formosissima, on whose stigma 

 may be observed a large limpid globule of an adhesive nature, to catch the fertilising 

 pollen. Vide Dr. Thornton's " New Illustration of the Sexual System, with a 

 Dissertation on the Sexes of Plants." Editor. 



f This dispute is now settled. The pollen, Linnaeus, in his Dissertation 6n the 

 Sexes of Plants, has proved, does not pass the style, as in the Miraeilis, marvel of 

 Peru, where each globule of pollen is larger than the style, but only the most subtle 

 exhalation. JEditor. 



