Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/351

Rh to perfection in different flowers at different times, so that the anthers of one may impregnate the stigmas of another, whose stamens were abortive, or long since withered. The same thing happens in other instances. Linnæus mentions the Jatropha urens as producing flowers with stamens some weeks in general before or after the others. Hence he obtained no seed till he preserved the pollen a month or more in paper, and scattered it on a few stigmas then in perfection. There can be no doubt that, in a wild state, some or other of the two kinds of blossoms are ripe together, throughout the flowering season, on different trees.

A similar experiment to that just mentioned was made in 1749 upon a Palm-tree at Berlin, which for want of pollen had never brought any fruit to perfection. A branch of barren flowers was sent by the post from Leipsic, twenty German miles distant, and suspended over the pistils. Consequently abundance of fruit was ripened, and many young plants raised from the seeds