Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 6 (1802).djvu/93

Rh "By a small addition of fresh brandy some few are excited a second time, but with fainter movements. Presently the liquid begins to be obscured, and in a few minutes the grains are mostly dispersed and decomposed, and the spirit, exhaling, leaves a sort of extract on the glass mixed with very minute undissolved particles; among which sometimes appear a few unbroken grains, much changed, and now resembling an empty bladder lying flat.

2. Erica carnea. Anthers capsular, bearing the pollen on their inner surface, and discharging it by a brisk explosion from an aperture on the side next the pistil. If the stigma be touched with a pin at a certain period of the inflorescence, it happens commonly that all the anthers project their pollen at once; and it may thus be collected on paper. The proper time for this is when the stigma is elevated a little from between the anthers. In size and structure this pollen nearly resembles the preceding, and is, in like manner, capable of imbibing water and dispersing with a rapid motion in spirit.

3. Reseda odorata. Mignonette.

Unripe pollen, smooth, egg-oblong, transparent, without septa? In water it expands to a sphere, and is acted upon by spirit as the preceding.

4. Cactus flagelliformis, Creeping Cereus.

Anthers oblong, crumbling. Pollen of a large size, compared with any others I have seen; in shape resembling a plump grain of wheat, white and diaphanous. It expands in water to a shape nearly spherical. The contact of spirit brings on a pearly opacity. The grains imbibe it slowly, and during expansion revolve on their axes with a pretty regular motion, exhibiting a spectacle no less novel than delightful. In the mean time, some minute particles are seen to be ejected, and, the motion ceasing, the transparency returns, proceeding from the surface to the centre. If