prolific seeds from it. With the plants which sprung from these seeds, he
repeated the experiment, impregnating them with the farina of the nicotiana
paniculata. As the mule plants which he thus produced were prolific, he
continued to impregnate them for many generations with the farina of the
nicotiana paniculata, and they became more and more like the male parent,
till he at length obtained six plants in every respect perfectly similar to
the nicotiana paniculata; and in no respect resembling their female parent
the nicotiana rustica. _Blumenbach_ on Generation.

3. It is probable that the insects, which are said to require but one
impregnation for six generations, as the aphis (see Amenit. Academ.)
produce their progeny in the manner above described, that is, without a
mother, and not without a father; and thus experience a lucina sine
concubitu. Those who have attended to the habits of the polypus, which is
found in the stagnant water of our ditches in July, affirm, that the young
ones branch out from the side of the parent like the buds of trees, and
after a time separate themselves from them. This is so analogous to the
manner in which the buds of trees appear to be produced, that these polypi
may be considered as all male animals, producing embryons, which require no
mother to supply them with a nidus, or with nutriment, and oxygenation.

This lateral or lineal generation of plants, not only obtains in the buds
of trees, which continue to adhere to them, but is beautifully seen in the
wires of knot-grass, polygonum aviculare, and in those of strawberries,
fragaria vesca. In these an elongated creeping bud is protruded, and, where
it touches the ground, takes root, and produces a new plant derived from
its father, from which it acquires both nutriment and oxygenation; and in
consequence needs no maternal apparatus for these purposes. In viviparous
flowers, as those of allium magicum, and polygonum viviparum, the anthers
and the stigmas become effete and perish; and the lateral or paternal
offspring succeeds instead of seeds, which adhere till they are
sufficiently mature, and then fall upon the ground, and take root like
other bulbs.

The lateral production of plants by wires, while each new plant is thus
chained to its parent, and continues to put forth another and another, as
the wire creeps onward on the ground, is exactly resembled by the
tape-worm, or taenia, so often found in the bowels, stretching itself in