first time in 1839. In 1844 Mr. John Smith, of the Royal Gardens at Kew, published, in the Transactions of the Linnæan Society, an account of his observations on this plant, He staled that he had never been able to find male flowers or pollen of any Sort, but that nevertheless perfect seeds were produced end) year, from which young plants were raised resembling the parent plant in every respect. Mr. Smith suggested the possibility of the existence of a fertilizing power in the fluid secreted by the glands above mentioned. We shall have to return to the case of Cœlebogyne in a later part of this report, but there are some other intermediate observations which first require attention.
In the "Annales des Sc. Nat." Ser. III. Vol. V. Gasparini asserts that the cultivated fig produces seeds without the intervention of pollen. It bears (he says) two kinds of fruit, the one kind appears in spring and ripens early, the other appears in summer and ripens in autumn. In the former, male flowers are seldom found, and those which exist cannot serve for impregnation, as they do not appear until the stigma has withered. In these early fruits Gasparini never found perfect seeds. In the summer fruit he never found male flowers, and yet most of the ovaries produced seeds capable of germination. In order to prevent impregnation from without, Gasparini closed the opening of the young fruit of the cultivated fig with gum, or some other glutinous matter, and yet procured numerous perfect seeds. He never found in the fruits thus experimented upon any anthers or pollen-bearing organs. To these observations of Gasparini it has been objected—1st. That from time immemorial the cultivated fig has been impregnated artificially by the wild fig, an operation which would have been a waste of trouble if perfect seeds were produced without such process; 2ndly, that the impregnation cannot be watched with the necessary care, inasmuch as it takes place within the receptacle of the fruit; and 3rdly, that some observers have noticed peculiar organs in the ovule of the cultivated fig, which are called pollinidia, the nature of which is not yet understood.
The next observations at which we arrive are those of M. Naudin.[1] He experimented with Hemp, Mercuialis, Ricinus, Bryonia, and Ecbalium. He found that female plants of Hemp planted in a place surrounded by high walls, and others cultivated in pots and placed in a greenhouse in a garden, also surrounded by high walls, produced a quantity of perfect seeds, although no male plants were near, and although the females were subjected to careful examination with a view to the detection of possible male organs. Female plants raised from these unimpregnated seeds were set apart in the house of M. Decaisne, and so protected that M. Xaudin considers it altogether impossible that any pollen could have reached them; and although they were carefully examined by himself and M. Decaisne, no single male flower was ever discovered amongst the females. His observations
- ↑ Comptes rendues, Vol. 43 (1856).
