own substance; the coats and albumen of the seed being formed of that portion which remains.[1]
In the same year, M. Auguste de Saint Hiliare[2] shows that the micropyle is not always approximated to the umbilicus; that in some plants it is situated at the opposite extremity of the ovulum, and that in all cases it corresponds with the radicle of the embryo. This excellent botanist, at the same time, adopts M. Turpin's opinion, that the micropyle is the cicatrix of a vascular cord, and even gives instances of its connection with the parietes of the ovarium; mistaking, as I believe, contact, which in some plants unquestionably takes place, and in one family, namely, Plumbagineæ, in a very remarkable manner, but only after a certain period, for original cohesion, or organic connection, which I have not met with in any case.
In 1815 also appeared the masterly dissertation of Professor Ludolf Christian Treviranus, on the development of 547] the vegetable Embryo,[3] in which he describes the ovulum before fecundation as having two coats; but of these, his inner coat is evidently the middle membrane of Grew, the chorion of Malpighi, or what I have termed nucleus.
In 1822, Mons. Dutrochet, unacquainted, as it would seem, with the dissertation of Professor Treviranus, published his observations on the same subject.[4] In what regards the structure of the ovulum, he essentially agrees with that author, and has equally overlooked the inner membrane.
It is remarkable that neither of these observers should have noticed the foramen in the testa. And as they do not even mention the well-known essays of MM. Turpin and Auguste de St. Hilaire on the micropyle, it may be presumed that they were not disposed to adopt the statements of these authors respecting it.
Professor Link, in his Philosophia Botanica, published in 1824, adopts the account given by Treviranus, of the
