Mr. A. Henfrey on the Progress of Physiological Botany, 49 
V . — Reports on the Progress of Physiological Botany. No. 1. 
By Arthur Henfrey, F.L.S. &c. 
Recent researches into the origin and development of the Vegetable 
Embryo. 
This ‘‘ vexed question/^ on which botanists in general have of 
late years been unable to form a satisfactory opinion, so contra- 
dictory and well-balanced has been the evidence for the various 
hypotheses, appears now somewhat nearer to a decisive settlement, 
since within the last year we have had no less than four elaborate 
and comprehensive essays presented to us, detailing the whole 
series of changes which the ovule passes through, from the open- 
ing of the bud to the ripening of the seed. When the names of 
Amici and Von Mohl appear as the authors of two of these papers, 
it will be understood how important these new investigations are ; 
and the fact of the agreement of all four inter se, excepting in 
some trivial points, and the possibility of reconciling their results 
with the appearances which have presented themselves to authors 
holding ditferent views, will probably cause them to be regarded 
as tolerably conclusive. The great result at which all these 
recent writers have arrived is, that Schleiden^s statement, that 
the end of the pollen-tube becomes the embryo, is incorrect, and 
that the old opinion, which regarded the pollen as the source of 
a fertilizing matter necessary to stimulate the embryo-sac to the 
development of the germ of the future plant, is true ; the pollen- 
tube being consequently merely the agent for the conveyance of 
the fertilizing matter through the style and the foramina of the 
ovule, having its progress arrested upon the outside of the w^all 
of the embryo-sac, through which and the membrane of the 
pollen-tube itself the fecundating fluid is supposed to be im- 
bibed. 
The few remarks which it may be necessary for the reporter 
to make on the relations of these investigations to preceding ob- 
servations, will be most conveniently reserved till after a general 
account of them has been laid before the reader. 
The first paper we meet with is one read by Prof. Amici before 
the Italian Congress at Genoa in 1846. Our knowledge of it is 
derived from German and French translations*. 
In the first instance the author refers to some observations 
previously made public upon Cucurbita Pepo^ in which he showed 
that the pollen-tube penetrates into the neck or summit of the 
nucleus to a certain depth; but never into the embryonal vesicle t; 
* On the Fertilization of Orchidacece, by Prof. J. B. Amici, Giornale Bo- 
tanico italiano, di Filippo Parlatore. (Transl. Ann. des Sc. Nat. 3 ser. vii. 
193, April 1847 ; and by Von Mold, Bot. Zeitung, May 21 & 28, 1847.) 
f By embryonal vesicle Prof. Amici signifies the embryo-sac, and this must 
Ann. ^ Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 2. Vol. i. 4 
