Francis Wall Oliver

“ Schleiden spoke of these researches with the utmost scorn. "For my part I am surprised that no one has yet insisted upon the presence of the organs of sense, as eyes and ears in plants, since they are possessed by animals. Such an assumption would not be a bit more absurd than the mania of insisting upon having anthers in the Cryptogams, simply because they are found in the Phanerogams."
All these ill-grounded hypotheses were swept away in 1844 when Nägeli discovered antheridia containing spermatozoids on the "cotyledon" or pro-embryo of the fern—the prothallus we call it now. ”

“ The head of the sperm is represented as entering the "embryo-sac," and there becoming encysted to form the embryo just as the tip of the pollen tube was supposed to do in flowering plants. The further development of the embryo and its various organs are traced and figured, however, in the most admirable way. At the conclusion of his paper Suminski states that in view of the presence of male organs and ovules, and the occurrence of fertilisation, the cryptogamy of ferns does not exist in a physiological sense, and ceases to have any validity as a peculiar character. ”

“ To-day, no branch of Botany has more recruits or is more vigorously pursued in this country than that of Palaeobotany, and so long as the science remains will the memory of Williamson be green.
Harry Marshall Ward belongs to a generation younger than any of the foregoing. His student days coincided with the renaissance of Botany in England in the seventies of the last century, and coming under the influence of Huxley, Thiselton-Dyer, Vines and others, Ward early revealed himself as an ardent investigator. ”

“ In Robert Brown we have the greatest botanist of his day, for thirty years keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum. It is doubtful if any greater intellect than Brown's has ever been devoted to the service of Botanical Science. ”

“ However, by 1840, a change was coming over the face of botany. Little as it can have been dreamt, the Golden Age was already beginning—destined in a relatively short time to transform the subject. This Golden Age was contemporaneous with, and immediately dependent on, the rise of a group of young botanists in the Fatherland, a group which included von Mohl, Schleiden, Hofmeister, Nägeli, Cohn and De Bary. Later it was reinforced by Sachs, who in addition to being a brilliant physiologist was a gifted writer who did much to establish scientific botany on a sound footing. ”

“ In certain respects no doubt Suminski's paper is fantastic—more especially the circumstantial details given of the process of fertilisation. But, however we may criticise his work the credit belongs to Suminski of showing (1) that sexual organs are borne on the prothallus, (2) that the embryo fern plant is produced as the result of fertilisation. Unlike Nägeli, to Suminski came the happy inspiration of looking for the female organs in the position where common sense indicated they ought to be found. ”

“ Ecology should have a great part to play in helping to break down the frontiers which have too long tended to separate Botany from the other sciences, and the maintenance of which is not in the true interests of the subject.
↑ Darwin and Modern Science. ”

“ In a book like the present, the work of a large number of distinct contributors, it is evident that no continuous or homogeneous treatment of the history and progress of Botany in this country is possible. ”

“ Botany gradually degenerated under the influence of his authority into an insipid dilettantism—a dull occupation for plant collectors who called themselves systematists, in entire contravention of the meaning of the word. ”

“ The science of plant breeding, too long neglected by the countrymen of Darwin, has been pursued with much success for a decade, and has already reached the "producing stage" in respect of new and improved races of agricultural plants. ”

“ On present indications it is to be expected that in the near future physiology will receive much more attention than hitherto, partly as an inevitable reaction from the field of pure structure, and partly because of its fundamental importance in relation to agriculture. ”

“ This theory was the lineal descendant in modernised trappings of the old view expressed by Morland and others at the beginning of the eighteenth century that the embryo was contained in the pollen grain, and that the ovule was no more than the brood chamber whither it must be brought to undergo further development. ”

“ Narrative—state of Botany—dawn of the Golden Age—sexuality of Angiosperms—Schleiden's elucidation of fern life-history—Nägeli, Suminski and Hofmeister—recognition by Henfrey—original work—publications—the Micrographic Dictionary—The Botanical Gazette—its features—Henfrey's labours not immediately productive. ”

“ The ten lectures comprised in the course were delivered by various botanists, the lecturer in each case being either a worker in the same field as, or in some other way having a special qualification to deal with, his allotted subject. ”

“ Moreover by his own investigations he kept close touch with the modern work and was indeed the means of corroborating and often materially advancing many of the larger problems before putting them into general circulation in this country. ”