262 The Sex and Generative Organs of Plants. 



pistil, the female organs. In most cases, both of these 

 sexual organs are united in one flower. Since that period, a 

 direct action of the organs on each other for the produc- 

 tion of the elements of a new plants, the seed, has been 

 invariably assumed, without people exactly knowing how 

 the act of fecundation was accomplished. The supposition of 

 sexes was in those times chiefly supported by the phenomena 

 of bastards or mules in the vegetable kingdom. 



Thus for instance, by artificial generation mules have been 

 produced in the vegetable, as well as in the animal kingdom, 

 and at the present time, many industrious gardeners practice 

 this process, to produce large and long lasting flowers. 

 When we are accustomed to see the formation of bastards 

 take place in the vegetable, under similar conditions to those 

 under which they are formed in the animal kingdom, we are 

 inclined to look on this as the most decided proof of the 

 sexualty of plants. In the mean time, of late years, great 

 progress has been made in unveiling the more hidden 

 phenomena of fecundation, and we have been able, by the 

 aid of well constructed microscopes, to penetrate in our 

 researches regarding vegetable reproduction to the very 

 verge of what our faculties are capable of appreciating. The 

 whole process now lies before us as a complete phenomenon, 

 and it remains for the further researches of the observers of 

 this process, only to examine its numerous varieties accord- 

 ing to the different external and internal structure of indivi- 

 dual plants. 



But in order to take a general view of what is known 

 regarding the organs of generation in plants, it is necessary 

 to cast a general glance over the history of the development 

 of plants. 



In the higher vegetables, in the part which is turned away 

 from the earth, and which is developed upwards toward the 

 sun, in short that which is provided with flowers, the growth 

 takes place in two chief directions, in that of length and 



