As all seed vessels are destined to produce seeds, so are the stamina to bear the pollen, or fecundating powder. All seeds contain within their membranes a certain medullary substance, which swells when dipped into warm water. All pollen, likewise, contains in its membrane an elastic substance, which, although very subtle, and almost invisible, by means of warm water often explodes with great vehemence. While plants are in flower, the pollen falls from their antheræ, and is dispersed abroad, as seeds are dislodged from their situation when the fruit is ripe. At the same time that the pollen is scattered, the pistillum presents its stigma, which is then in its highest vigour, and, for a portion of the day at least, is moistened with a fine dew. The stamina either surround this stigma, or if the flowers are of the drooping kind, they are bent towards one side, so that the pollen can easily find access to the stigma, where it not only adheres by means of the dew of that part, but the moisture occasions its bursting, by which means its contents are discharged. That issued from it being mixed with the fluid of the stigma, is conveyed to rudiments of the seed. Many evident instances of this present themselves to our notice; but I have nowhere seen it more manifest than in the Jacobean Lily (_Amarylis formosissima_), the pistillum of which, when sufficient heat is given the plant to make it flower in perfection, is bent downwards and from its stigma issues a drop of limpid fluid, so large that one would think it in danger of falling to the ground. It is, however, gradually reabsorbed into the style about three or four o’clock and becomes invisible until about ten the next morning, when it appears again; by noon it attains its largest dimensions; and in the afternoon, by a gentle and scarcely perceptible decrease it returns to its source. If we shake the antheræ over the stigma, so that the pollen may fall on this limpid drop, we see the fluid soon after become turbid and assume a yellow color; and we perceive little rivulets, or opaque streaks running from the stigma towards the rudiments of the seed. Some time afterwards, when the drop has totally disappeared, the pollen may be observed adhering to the stigma, but of an irregular figure, having lost its original form. No one, therefore, can assent to what Morland and others have asserted, that the pollen passes into the stigma, pervades the style and enters the tender rudiments of the seed, as Leeuwenhoeck supposed his worms to enter the ova. A most evident proof of the falsehood of this opinion may be obtained from any species of _Mirabilis_ (Marvel of Peru), whose pollen is so very large that it almost exceeds the style itself in thickness, and, falling on the stigma, adheres firmly to it; that organ sucking and exhausting the pollen, as a cuttle fish devours everything that comes within its grasp. One evening in the month of August, I removed all the stamina