Posthumous papers bequeathed to ... the East India Company ... Notulae ad plantas Asiaticas. Pt. II, On the higher cryptogamous plants ... / Arranged by J. M'Clelland.

  • Griffith, William, 1810-1845.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Posthumous papers bequeathed to ... the East India Company ... Notulae ad plantas Asiaticas. Pt. II, On the higher cryptogamous plants ... / Arranged by J. M'Clelland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the organs, supposed to have been called into existence by their agency. The striking resemblance that these organs have in certain cases, to the cellular processes formed round the pistillum in many Mosses, may suggest a partial objection. But the ques- tion reverts to this, of what nature are these cellular processes. As they are obviously not reduceable to the type of formation of the pistillum, as is more over testified by the frequent pre- sence of undeveloped pistilla, near, or among them. I incline for the present to consider them as abortive anthers. We should expect from theoretical reasoning, that if imper- fect anthers are found among Mosses, they would assume tlie form of tiie perfect ones in those Families, in which the sexual organs are doubtless in a far lower stage of develop- ment, probably the lowest known. To this hypothesis, Anthoceros is at present an objection, for with some analogies in its female organ with that of Ferns, it has perhaps the most perfect Cryptogamous anthers. The fact is, that in this, as in every other question, the ob- jections will be numerous in proportion to the limited manner in which the subject is viewed. Ferns form a tribe of beings not to be understood if viewed as an isolated division of vegetables ; but comprehensible, if viewed in connection with the neighbouring tribes. The interpreters of their obscure passages are, I think, to be found among Hepaticaeand Musci ; and I therefore pass at once to a short review of the repro- ductive functions of these beings. It is, I think evident, that Ferns do not present any obvious point (punctum) to which the male influence is to be applied, and which point, whenever it is obvious to our senses, assumes the stigmatic form, as in all pericarpial plants. In this point of view, they are inferior to Mosses and Ile- paticae : the inferiority in this may be fairly assumed as indi- cating a corresponding lowness of organisation in the males. The intermediate degree of organisation of generative organs, is to be found in Anthoceros, which is a plant sui ordinis,