Page:Narrative of a survey of the intertropical and western coasts of Australia, Volume 2.djvu/570



entirely the product of fecundation. He asserts also that the Embryo constantly appears at that point of the ovulum where the ultimate branches of the umbilical vessels perforate the inner membrane; and therefore mistakes the apex for the base of the nucleus.

In 1806 Mons. Turpin published a memoir on the organ by which the fecundating fluid is introduced into the vegetable ovulum. The substance of this memoir is, that in all Phænogamous plants fecundation takes place through a cord or fasciculus of vessels entering the outer coat of the ovulum, at a point distinct from, but, at the period of impregnation, closely approximated to the umbilicus; and to the cicatrix of this cord, which itself is soon obliterated, he gives the name of Micropyle: that the ovulum has two coats each having its proper umbilicus, or, as he terms it, omphalode; that these coats in general correspond in direction; that more rarely the inner membrane is, with relation to the outer, inverted; and that towards the origin of the inner membrane the radicle of the embryo uniformly points.

It is singular that a botanist, so ingenious and experienced as M. Turpin, should, on this subject, instead of appealing in every case to the unimpregnated ovulum, have apparently contented himself with an examination of the ripe seed. Hence, however, he has formed an erroneous opinion of the nature and origin, and in some plants of the situation, of the micropyle itself, and hence also he has in all cases mistaken the apex for the base of the nucleus.

A minute examination of the early state of the ovulum does not seem to have entered into the plan of the late celebrated M. Richard, when in 1808 he published his