PHYSIOLOGY. JON Boras 
some botanists explain the formation of Fungi, merely 
by the fermentation of putrifying vegetable matter. 
What led them to this, was their sudden rise, and 
the places which some of them always occupy. But 
there are likewise animals of the shortest duration, 
and others which are found on certain peculiar spots 
only, and no where else. Vo draw any conclu- 
sions from such circumstances is rather improper. 
And now, as the seeds and flowers of these plants 
have been discovered, this idea will be altogether 
abandoned. No organic body arises almost in any 
other way but from ova, (§ 296), and the Generatio 
-aequivoca therefore is a mere nothing. | 
The theory of animalcula in the semen of ani- 
mals being carried over to the ovarium of the mo- 
ther, where the new animal is formed, has Leu- 
wenhoeck for its author. Some therefore, in the ve- 
getable kingdom, assumed pre-existing germs Or 
corcles in the pollen, which in the mother’s ovaries 
unfolded themselves into the future plant. A very 
zealous supporter of this opinion was Mr Gleichen. 
Some even went so far as to see, under the micro- 
scope, small asses in-the semen of an ass, and small 
lime trees in the pollen of a lime. ~Strange things 
may be seen, if persons are disposed to see them. 
- Koelreuter’s observations, of which immediately, at 
once overthrow this doctrine. | | 
- The system of pre-formation, which in former 
times was much in vogue, is not, even by its most 
zealous admirers, much insisted on in the vegetable 
kingdom. Spallanzani, who in animals, by means 
of tedious experiments, attempted to prove the pre- 
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