58 MR. G. BENTHAM ON AUSTRALIAN PROTEACEZ. 
Orchids are manifestly inferior in this respect. They pro- 
duce, as remarked by Mr. Darwin, a prodigious quantity of fine 
seed which rarely germinates. 
Notes on the Styles of Australian Proteacee. 
By Grorer BentHdm, F.R.S., P.L.S. 
[Read April 6, 1871.] 
(Prarzs I. & 11.) 
In the Proteaces, as in the Composite and some other Orders, it 
had been observed that the anthers in most cases open and dis- 
charge their pollen upon an enclosed pubescent papillose or glu- 
tinous portion of the style, usually described as the stigma, before 
the flower expands ; and it was therefore concluded that fecunda- 
tion then and there took place. This has now long been shown 
to be a fallacy in the case of Composite; for, as Lessing and 
others have pointed out, the really stigmatie portion of the style 
is always on the inner face and often only at the base ofthe style- 
branches, which remain hermetically closed until the flower has 
opened and they are protruded beyond the anthers. Then, and 
then only, do these branches open so as to render the stigmatic 
surface accessible to any pollen which may be shed upon them. 
In the Proteace: the case is different; the style is undivided, the 
stigmatic surface is superficial even in the bud, and the contri- 
vances to screen it more or less from the action of the pollen 
which is then being scattered around it, reserving it for the pollen 
of other flowers after it has been released from the enclosing pe- 
rianth, are very various. Those which I have observed in the 
course of my examination of the Order for the Australian flora 
are chiefly the following. These observations, however, are made 
almost exclusively on dried specimens, as I was only able to exa- 
mine a very few Grevillea and Hakea flowers in a living state, 
and the notes I could collect from previous observers were but 
very few. They will require, therefore, to be supplemented and 
probably in several instances corrected by those who can watch 
the process of ripening and mutual action of the anthers and 
stigma on the living plants. 
As a general rule, the anthers in the bud form a close cylinder 
round the papillose portion of the style, which has probably some 
stimulating influence on them ; for immediately before the open- 
ing of the flower we find the anthers open inside and the pollen- 
