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Show 260 PHYSIOGNOMY 01!' PLANTS. seeds without the neighborhood of pollen-bearing vessels, has been refuted by later experiments. When seed have been obtained, anthers in a rudimentary state, capable of furnishing some grains of fertilizing dust, have been discovered near the ovarium. Such hermaphroditism is frequent in the entire family of Urticre, but a peculiar and still unexplained phenomenon has been presented in the forcing-houses at Kew by a small New Holland shrub, the Crelebogyne of Smith. This phrenogamous plant produces in England perfect seeds without trace of male organs, or the hybridizing introduction of the pollen of other species. An ingenious botanist, Adrien de Jussieu, in his "Cours Elementaire de Botanique," 1840, p. 463, expresses himself on the subject as follows: "Un genre d'Euphorbiacees (?) assez nouvellement decrit, mais cultive, depuis plusieurs annees dans les serres d' Angleterre, le Coolebogyne, y a plusieurs fois fructifie, et ses graines etaient evidemment parfaites, puisque non seulement on y a observe un embryon bien, constitue, mais qu'en le semant cet embryon s'est developpe en une plante semblable. Or les fieurs sont dioiques; on ne connait et ne possede pas (en Angleterre) de pieds males, et les recherches les plus minutieuses, faite par les meilleurs observateurs, n'ont pu jusqu'ici faire decouvrir la moindre trace d'antheres ou seulement de pollen. L'embryon ne venait done pas de ce pollen, qui manque entierement: il a du se former de tout piece dans !'ovule." In order to obtain a fresh confirmation or elucidation of this highly important and isolated phenomenon, I addressed myself not long since to my young friend Dr. Joseph Hooker, who, after making the Antarctic voyage with Sir James Ross, has now joined the great Thibeto-Himalayan expedition. Dr. Hooker wrote to me in reply, on his arrival at Alexandria near the end of December 1847, before embarking at Suez: "Our Coolebogyne still flowers with my father at Kew as well as in the Gardens of the Horticultural Society. It ripens its seeds regularly: I have examined it repeatedly very closely and carefully, and have never been able to discover a penetration of pollen-tubes either in the style or ovarium. In my herbarium the male blossoms are in small catkins." |