











Chap. VIII. CLEISTOGAMIC FLOWERS. 331 



\ 



capsules were produced in Mr. Farrer's hot-house; and 

 the gardener detected that they were the product of 

 minute bud-like bodies, three or four of which could 

 sometimes be found on the same umbel with the perfect 

 flowers. They were quite closed and hardly thicker 

 than their peduncles. The sepals presented nothing 

 particular, but internally and alternating with them, 

 there were five small flattened heart-shaped papilla?, like 

 rudiments of petals; but the homological nature of 

 which appeared doubtful to Mr. Bentham and Dr. 

 Hooker. . No trace of anthers or of stamens could be 

 detected ; and I knew from having examined many cleis- 

 togamic flowers what to look for. There were two 

 ovaries, full of ovules, quite open at their upper ends, 

 with their edges festooned, but with no trace of a proper 

 stigma. In all these flowers one of the two ovaries 

 withered and blackened long before the other. The one 

 perfect capsule, 3^ inches in length, which was sent me, 

 had likewise been developed from a single carpel. This 

 capsule contained an abundance of plumose seeds, many 

 of which appeared quite sound, but they did not ger- 

 minate when sown at Kew. Therefore the little 

 bud-like flower which produced this capsule prob- 

 ably was as destitute of pollen as were those which I 

 examined. 



Juncus hufonius and Hordeum. — All the species 

 hitherto mentioned which produce cleistogamic flow- 

 ers are entomophilous ; but Juncus and seven genera 

 of Graminea* are anemophilous. Juncus hufonius is re- 

 markable * by bearing in parts of Eussia only cleisto- 

 gamic flowers, which contain three instead of the six 

 anthers found in the perfect flowers. In the genus 



* See Dr. Aschersmi's interesting paper in ' Bot. Zeitung,' 1871, p, 

 551. Also 1872, p. 697. 



* 



