approximation to the ideas of Morland and Geoffrey; and if it
were correct, it would like these imply the necessity of pollination to the formation of seeds that should contain embryos, but
at the same time it would do away with that which is the essential point in the sexuality of plants, for the ovule would merely
be the spot adapted to the hatching of the embryo formed from
the pollen. Schleiden's idea was at once adopted by Wydler,
Gelesnow and various other botanists, and especially by
Schacht, but the most eminent microscopists withheld their
assent. Amici was the first who openly opposed the new doctrine; before the Italian congress of savants at Padua in 1842
he endeavoured to prove that the embryo is not formed at the
end of the pollen-tube, but from a portion of the ovule which
was already in existence before fertilisation, and that this part
is fertilised by, the fluid contained in the pollen-tube. But the
choice of a gourd, a plant eminently unsuitable for his purpose, prevented his discovering the exact details of the process,
and Schleiden did not hesitate to denounce his assertions in
1845 in the plainest terms. But in the next year (1846) Amici
produced decisive proof for the views which he had maintained; he showed from the Orchidaceae, which were peculiarly well
adapted for such investigations, not only that Robert Brown's
doubts above mentioned were without foundation, but, which
is the main point, that a body, the egg-cell, is present in the
embryo-sac of the ovule before the arrival of the pollen-tube,
and that this body is excited by the presence of the pollen-tube
to further development, the formation of the embryo. He gave a connected account on this occasion for the first time of
the whole course of these processes from the pollination of the
stigma to the perfecting of the embryo.
The correctness of the account given by Amici was confirmed in the following year by von Mohl and Hofmeister, the latter of whom described in detail the points which were decisive of the question from a variety of plants, and illustrated them by very beautiful figures in a more copious work, 'Die
