OF THE LIFE OF LINN/EUS. 
*95 
the greatest part of the flowers were contracted and concealed, and 
found that the vegetable reign was almost entirely in a dormant state*. 
The flower, as the most admirable and most curious part of the 
plants, had occupied him chiefly, and furnished him with the model of 
that new system, by which the vegetable reign obtained its male and 
female sexes, in the same manner as the animal reign. The truth of 
this system he corroborated successively by several irrefragable proofs 
and observations. He demonstrated, how the flower and fruit develope 
themselves as embryos, how there are even bastards among the plants, 
and how the mixture and bastard-species might be produced by putting 
the blossom- dust of one plant, upon the notch of fructification of 
another, in the same manner as we see the production of a mule by 
an ass and a mare in the animal reign. This is a palpable proof of 
the double sexes in the vegetable reign, which the French botanist 
Adanson would not in the least admit t. The objections and repre- 
sentations of M. Necker at Manheim , against this discovery, are be- 
sides many others but too well known. According to the Lihn-ean 
method all the vegetable productions are propagated by seeds. He 
extended the same mode of propagation to the mosses, but could not 
accomplish those enquiries which were to make him triumph over his 
opponents. At last Dr. Hedwig of Leipsic, the Dillbnius of 
Germany,, decided the contest in favour of Linnteus £. 
* Somnus Plantarum, 1755 ; Amoenitat. Academ. vol. iv. of which an English extract 
by Dr. R. Pulteney may be seen in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 17.57, p. 315. 
•}- M. Linne ignore-til, qu’il y a dans certaines plantes, comme dans les animaux, des 
families entieres, 011 il n’y a point de sexe distinft, ni sensible, ou tous .les individus se mul- 
tiplient sans aucune fecondation. 
J See Hedwig’s Fundamentum Historic Naturalis Muscorum frondosorum, concerncns 
eorum flores, seminalem propagationem, &c. Lips, 1782.410. also Lvjdwigii Epistola de 
Sexu Muscorum detecto Lips, 1778. 4to. 
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