or more rarely, a part of the surface of the umbilical cord. It also appeared, however, from some of the facts noticed in the same Essay, that there were cases in which the Particles contained in the grains of pollen could hardly be conveyed 4] to that point of the ovulum through the vessels or cellular tissue of the ovarium; and the knowledge of these cases, as well as of the structure and economy of the antheræ in Asclepiadeæ, had led me to doubt the correctness of observations made by Stiles and Gleichen upwards of sixty years ago, as well as of some very recent statements, respecting the mode of action of the pollen in the process of impregnation.
It was not until late in the autumn of 1826 that I could attend to this subject; and the season was too far advanced to enable me to pursue the investigation. Finding, however, in one of the few plants then examined, the figure of the particles contained in the grains of pollen clearly discernible, and that figure not spherical but oblong, I expected, with some confidence, to meet with plants in other respects more favorable to the inquiry, in which these particles, from peculiarity of form, might be traced through their whole course: and thus, perhaps, the question determined whether they in any case reach the apex of the ovulum, or whether their direct action is limited to other parts of the female organ.
My inquiry on this point was commenced in June 1827, and the first plant examined proved in some respects remarkably well adapted to the object in view.
This plant was Clarckia pulchella, of which the grains of pollen, taken from antheræ full grown, but before bursting, were filled with particles or granules of unusually large size, varying from nearly 1⁄4000th to about 1⁄5000th of an inch in length, and of a figure between cylindrical and oblong, perhaps slightly flattened, and having rounded and equal extremities. While examining the form of these particles immersed in water, I observed many of them very evidently in motion; their motion consisting not only of a change of place in the fluid, manifested by alterations in their relative positions, but also not unfrequently of a change of form in
