In 1704, Etienne Francois Geoffroy,* and in 1711, his brother Claude Joseph Geoffroy,** in support of the same hypothesis, state the general existence of an aperture in the unimpregnated vegetable Ovulum.  It is not, however, probable that these authors had really seen this aperture in the early state of the Ovulum in any case, but rather that they had merely advanced from the observation of Grew, and the conjecture founded on it by Morland, whose hypothesis they adopt without acknowledgment, to the unqualified assertion of its existence, in all cases.  For it is to be remarked, that they take no notice of what had previously been observed or asserted on the more important parts of their subject, while several passages are evidently copied, and the whole account of the original state and development of the Ovulum is literally translated from Camerarius’ Essay.  Nor does the younger Geoffroy mention the earlier publication of his brother, from which his own memoir is in great part manifestly derived.

(Footnote.  Quaestio Medica an Hominis primordia Vermis? in auctoris Tractatu de Materia Medica tome 1 page 123.)

(**Footnote.  Mem. de l’Acad. des Sc. de Paris 1711 page 210.)

In 1718; Vaillant,* who rejects the vermicular hypothesis of generation, supposes the influence of the Pollen to consist in an aura, conveyed by the tracheae of the style to the ovula, which it enters, if I rightly understand him, by the funiculus umbilicalis:  at the same time he seems to admit the existence of the aperture in the coat.

(Footnote.  Discours sur la Structure des Fleurs page 20.)

In 1745, Needham,* and in 1770, Gleichen,** adopt the hypothesis of Morland, somewhat modified, however, as they consider the particles in the grains of Pollen, not the grains themselves, to be the embryos, and that they enter the ovula by the umbilical cord.

(Footnote.  New Microscopical Discoveries page 60.)

(**Footnote.  Observ.  Microscop. page 45 et 61 paragraph 118.)

Adanson, in 1763,* states the Embryo to exist before fecundation, and that it receives its first excitement from a vapour or aura proceeding from the Pollen, conveyed to it through the tracheae of the style, and entering the Ovulum by the umbilical cord.

(Footnote.  Fam. des Plant. tom. 1 page 121.)

Spallanzani,* who appears to have carefully examined the unimpregnated Ovula of a considerable variety of plants, found it in general to be a homogeneous, spongy, or gelatinous body; but in two Cucurbitaceae to consist of a nucleus surrounded by three coats.  Of these coats he rightly supposes the outermost to be merely the epidermis of the middle membrane or testa.  Of the relative direction of the testa and inner coat in the two plants in question he takes no notice, nor does he in any case mention an aperture in the Ovulum.

(Footnote.  Fisica Anim. e Veget. tome 3 page 309 to 332.)