Page:Miscellaneousbot01brow.djvu/493

 shall I hazard any conjectures whatever respecting these molecules, which appear to be of such general existence in inorganic as well as in organic bodies; and it is only further necessary to mention the principal substances from which I have not been able to obtain them. These are oil, resin, wax and sulphur, such of the metals as I could not reduce to that minute state of division necessary for their separation, and finally, bodies soluble in water.

In returning to the subject with which my investigation commenced, and which was indeed the only object I originally had in view, I had still to examine into the probable mode of action of the larger or peculiar particles of the pollen, which, though in many cases diminished in number before the grain could possibly have been applied to the stigma, and particularly in Clarckia, the plant first examined, were yet in many other plants found in less diminished propor- [13 tion, and might in nearly all cases be supposed to exist in sufficient quantity to form the essential agents in the process of fecundation.

I was now therefore to inquire, whether their action was confined to the external organ, or whether it were possible to follow them to the nucleus of the ovulum itself. My endeavours, however, to trace them through the tissue of the style in plants well suited for this investigation, both from the size and form of the particles, and the development of the female parts, particularly Onagrariæ, was not attended with success; and neither in this nor in any other tribe examined, have I ever been able to find them in any part of the female organ except the stigma. Even in those families in which I have supposed the ovulum to be naked, namely, Cycadeæ and Coniferæ, I am inclined to think that the direct action of these particles, or of the pollen containing them, is exerted rather on the orifice of the proper membrane than on the apex of the included nucleus; an opinion which is in part founded on the partial withering confined to one side of the orifice of that membrane in the larch,—an appearance which I have remarked for several years.

To observers not aware of the existence of the elementary