CONTEMPORARY WRITINGS. 
41 
Vegetable Fecundation. — This is one of 
the unsettled points of vegetable physiology ; 
and theories almost diametrically opposed are 
maintained in reference thereto by " the doc- 
tors." A general opinion is, that the pollen 
emits a slender tube, which, passing from the 
stigma to the ovary, conveys a material vivify- 
ing substance into the ovules ; and that, to 
effect fertilization, it is absolutely necessary 
for the pollen to be put into communication 
with the foramen of the ovule through the 
intervention of the conducting tissue of the 
stigma. A celebrated microscopic observer, 
Professor Amici, of Florence, has recently, by 
a minute examination of several species of 
Orchis, endeavoured to prove the existence of 
the essential part of the embryo anterior to the 
application of the pollen, which, according to 
him, acts as the specific stimulus to its deve- 
lopment. This view receives great support 
from some singular exceptions to the general 
law of fecundation. Of these, the most strik- 
ing occurs in a New Holland shrub, which has 
been cultivated several years in the Botanic 
Garden at Kew ; and which, though producing 
female flowers only, has constantly ripened 
seeds from which plants have been raised per- 
fectly resembling the parent : while yet there 
is no suspicion either of the presence of male 
flowers in the same plant, or of minute stamina 
in the female flower itself, nor of fecundation 
by any related plant cultivated along with it. 
This plant has been figured and described in 
a recent volume of the Linnaean Society's 
Transactions, under the name of Ccelebogyne 
ilicifolia, by Mr. J. Smith, the intelligent 
curator of the Kew Garden, by whom, indeed, 
this remarkable fact was first noticed. Male 
flowers of the Ccelebogyne have lately been 
discovered in New Holland, unquestionably 
of the same species. Professor Gasparini, of 
Naples, has more recently made various obser- 
vations and experiments on the cultivated fig, 
which, though entirely destitute of male 
flowers, produced seeds having a perfectly 
developed embryo, independent of fecunda- 
tion ; access to the pollen of the wild fig, 
generally supposed to be carried by insects, 
being, in his experiments, prevented by the 
early and complete shutting up of the only 
channel in the fig by which it could be intro- 
duced. 
Large Hawthorns. — In an old farm-yard 
fence at Winmarty, near Garstang, the pro- 
perty of Wilson Patten, Esq., M.P., are some 
line old trees of the hawthorn {Cratcegtis 
Oxyacantha). They are from thirty to forty 
feet high, with stems from twelve to fifteen 
inches in diameter. Specimens of so large a 
size as this are rare : and must have a most 
beautiful effect when in bloom. 
Gold-striped Periwinkle. — The only 
hardy plant which approaches the tracery of 
the exquisitely marked Ancectochilus setaceus 
— whose leaves have not unaptly been com- 
pared to veins of gold flowing over a texture 
of green velvet — is the golden-striped variety 
of the greater Periwinkle ( Vinca major,) 
whose dark green leaves during the early 
spring and summer months are very finely 
marked with golden veins extending over 
their entire surface. The plant being per- 
fectly hardy, thriving in ordinary soil, and 
vegetating early, will be found valuable for 
picturesque effect amongst early forced plants 
in the conservatory and greenhouse, or as 
portable specimens in pots for the open bor- 
ders, either singly or otherwise. Its variega- 
tion is, in many instances, so beautifully dis- 
tinct as to be adapted for the earliest bouquets 
of spring flowers. 
Popular Flowers. — It has invariably 
happened to all modern races of Florists' 
Flowers, that they have been the rage for a 
few years, and then have dropped in estima- 
tion as fast as they rose. Dahlias, pansies, 
calceolarias, are so many examples of this 
change of taste. From being universally ad- 
mired, and exciting a little frenzy among 
gardeners, they now hardly draw a passing 
regard, unless their qualities are of a marvel- 
lous order, and hardly then. The secret is, 
that the varieties are too similar. The 
breeders of Pelargoniums may expect a simi- 
lar loss of public favour, unless they can vary 
their sorts. The eye wearies of symmetrical 
forms which are all alike, except in the micro- 
scopical gaze of a profound connoisseur ; and 
when the novelty is gone, the Pelargonium, 
like other beautiful but insipid things, will be 
cast off and doomed to neglect. — Gard. Chron. 
Economical Greenhouses. — Mr. Rivers, 
nurseryman of Sawbridgeworth, has adopted 
a very inexpensive style of constructing the 
various buildings on his establishment ; and 
as similar erections might be turned to advan- 
tage in most gardens, whether large or small, 
it may be interesting to quote the annexed 
description of them from the Gardener's 
Journal: — "Mr. Rivers has built extensive 
sheds with asphalte walls and roofs. He has 
also built sheds of various sizes with asphalte 
walls and glass roofs, in form resembling what 
ai*e usually called lean-to forcing-houses. The 
front and back walls consist of upright posts 
of larch, cut once down ; one end is let into 
the ground, and the upper ends are cut even, 
and upon them a wall-plate is laid. These 
upright larch poles are two or three feet apart: 
the cut side faces outwards, and upon this is 
nailed a double coating of asphalte. The front 
wall is constructed in like manner, only lower, 
so that the roof assumes the ordinary slope 
given to greenhouses. In the front and back 
