CHAP, i.] Joseph G. Koelreuter and Konrad Sprengel. 415

of genius, like Camerarius and Koelreuter, who however sur- passed them both in boldness of conception and was therefore even less understood by his contemporaries and successors., than they had been by theirs. The conclusions, to which his in- vestigations led him, were so surprising, they suited so little with the dry systematism of the Linnaean school and with later views on the nature of plants, that they had become quite forgotten when Darwin brought them again before the world and showed their important bearing on the theory of descent. As Camerarius first proved that plants possess sexuality, and Koelreuter showed that plants of different species can unite sexually and produce fruitful hybrids, so now Sprengel showed that a certain form of hybridisation is common in the vegetable kingdom, namely the crossing of different flowers or different individuals of the same species. In his work, 'Das neu ent- deckte Geheimniss der Natur in Bau und Befruchtung der Blumen,' Berlin, 1793, he says at page 43 : 'Since very many flowers are dioecious, and probably at least as many herma- phrodite flowers are dichogamous, nature appears not to have intended that any flower should be fertilised by its own pollen.' . This was however only one of his surprising con- clusions ; still more important perhaps was the view, that the construction and all the peculiar characters of a flower can only be understood from their relation to the insects that visit them and effect their pollination ; here was the first attempt to explain the origin of organic forms from definite relations to their environment. Since Darwin breathed new life into these ideas by the theory of selection, Sprengel has been recognised as one of its chief supports.

It is highly interesting to read, how this speculative mind

the second part of his famous work ; his publisher (lid not even give him a copy of the first part. Natural disgust at the neglect with which his \\nil. w;is treated made him forsake botany and devote himself to languages. He- died in :Si6. One- of his pupils wrote a very hearty eulogium on him in the

' Hora ' t)l I s ! ly, p. 541, which has supplied the above (acts.