52 
ON THE VETERINARYMATERIA MEDICA. 
of the effluvium not known, nor the part whence it proceeds. 
The particles of it, minute almost beyond conception. 
Enclosed in the petals is the nectary , containing a sweet juice. 
His hearers, when boys, had often sucked it from the violet and 
primrose. It was the food of bees and other insects, who, while 
they were thrusting their probosces into the interior of the flower, 
were shaking the pollen on the stigma, or, receiving a portion of 
it themselves, carried it to other flowers, and thus unconsciously 
effected their impregnation. 
The corolla encloses and defends the important organs of repro¬ 
duction. The first of these is the stamen. It consists of a 
filament bearing on its top a broader and membranous substance 
called the anther . (This part of the lecture was illustrated by 
drawings and flowers.) The anther consists of two or more cavi¬ 
ties opening longitudinally, and filled with a dust-like substance 
called pollen. This, when viewed in the microscope, is found to 
consist of membranous bags, round or angular, rough or smooth, 
in different flowers, and filled with a subtle gas or vapour lighter 
than atmospheric air. When this pollen is sufficiently matured, 
the anther bursts and scatters it, and a portion of it falls on the 
pistil of the same flower, which is covered with a glutinous fluid, 
or it is borne by the wind, or bees, or insects, to other flowers. 
As this pollen is possessed of a prolific virtue, the stamens and 
anthers which contain it are called the male organs of the flower. 
In the centre of the flower, and over the germen or seed-vessel, 
is the pistil (the female organ). It consists of three parts, 
the germen or envelope and rudiment of the future seed; the style , 
resembling the filament of the anther; and the stigma , supported 
by the style, and either terminating in a point, or bulbous head, 
or hollow vessel, and covered with down, and that down bearing 
a glutinous matter. The pollen alights on the moist stigma, and 
explodes, and the extricated vapour, or the influence of it, passes 
to the germen, and the impregnation of the flower is effected. 
This accomplished, the corolla, and stamens, and pistils, die 
away, and the germen alone remains protected by the calyx. 
Whether the subtle vapour of the pollen is conveyed from the 
stigma, through the style, to the ovarian vesicles in the germen, 
or whether they are excited to a specific action from the influence 
it exerts on the stigma, is a question not decided. 
