A History of Science — Volume 4Williams, Henry Smith
History
A History of Science — Volume 4
Williams, Henry Smith
Science -- History
"Mr. Bauer has represented the tissue of the stigma, in the species of
Bletia, both before and, as he believes, after impregnation; and in the
latter state the utriculi are marked with from one to three areolae of
similar appearance.
"The nucleus may even be supposed to exist in the pollen of this family.
In the early stages of its formation, at least a minute areola is of
ten visible in the simple grain, and in each of the constituent parts
of cells of the compound grain. But these areolae may perhaps rather be
considered as merely the points of production of the tubes.
"This nucleus of the cell is not confined to orchideae, but is equally
manifest in many other monocotyledonous families; and I have even
found it, hitherto however in very few cases, in the epidermis of
dicotyledonous plants; though in this primary division it may perhaps
be said to exist in the early stages of development of the pollen. Among
monocotyledons, the orders in which it is most remarkable are Liliaceae,
Hemerocallideae, Asphodeleae, Irideae, and Commelineae.
"In some plants belonging to this last-mentioned family, especially
in Tradascantia virginica, and several nearly related species, it is
uncommonly distinct, not in the epidermis and in the jointed hairs of
the filaments, but in the tissue of the stigma, in the cells of the
ovulum even before impregnation, and in all the stages of formation
of the grains of pollen, the evolution of which is so remarkable in
tradascantia.
"The few indications of the presence of this nucleus, or areola, that I
have hitherto met with in the publications of botanists are chiefly in
some figures of epidermis, in the recent works of Meyen and Purkinje,
and in one case, in M. Adolphe Broigniart's memoir on the structure of
leaves. But so little importance seems to be attached to it that the
appearance is not always referred to in the explanations of the figures
in which it is represented. Mr. Bauer, however, who has also figured
it in the utriculi of the stigma of Bletia Tankervilliae has more
particularly noticed it, and seems to consider it as only visible after
impregnation."(2)
SCHLEIDEN AND SCHWANN AND THE CELL THEORY
That this newly recognized structure must be important in the economy of
the cell was recognized by Brown himself, and by the celebrated German
Meyen, who dealt with it in his work on vegetable physiology, published
not long afterwards; but it remained for another German, the professor
of botany in the University of Jena, Dr. M. J. Schleiden, to bring the
nucleus to popular attention, and to assert its all-importance in the
economy of the cell.
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